deep burn blue

Percy feels like they’ve already been friends for years, and he has to remind himself that he just met Annabeth. And he tells himself that he doesn’t have to fall in love with the first girl he meets at college, even though she makes him feel like he’s never stood in a shadow once in his life.
Beaming, glowing, radiating.
(This is how he falls in love with her.)
Or, alternatively,
unrequited love college au as promised

(re-post)

Chapter 1: tap tap fish

Chapter Text

The sun. Burning, unfading, shadowless. Warm.

There is a crowd – albeit small – filled with anxious freshmen, each one wondering if college is all it’s built up to be. The August sun is unobstructed, its beams heating the cobblestone square to a haze. And Percy feels dazed in this summer sun: he and his mother are in one piece each, he graduated high school, and he is attending college with a swim scholarship. It’s too much, he thinks, the bursts of gratitude between his ribs. He’s doing this, above all else, for his mother.

Freshman orientation drags on and on and on in the summer sun and Percy wants shade. High school is already a distant memory, a reminder that he was an easy target, a quiet swimmer, a near-failing student. Percy found the shadows of the school and bid his time beside Grover. College had seemed so far away, and yet, he is here, and the heat evaporates his timidness. He runs his eyes over his new classmates – people he will be spending the next four years next to – and wonders if they feel the same.

Yellow and pink and grey and blue.

This is how he first sees her.

There are sunbeams in her hair, and he sees a halo surrounding curls. She is inches taller than her friend, he registers next. Tanned, sunkissed, flushed. Her profile is sharp, and he can see the line of her eyebrow draw up as she laughs, and it’s a light sound until she lets out a snort. She and her friend collapse onto each other at this, and Percy feels his lips twitch in a grin. Infectious. California girl, if he had to guess. Bright.

The New York sun doesn’t stand a chance, he thinks.

This is how he meets her.

“Hey,” Jason, his roommate and teammate, nods over to the blonde. “Met her at Starbucks this morning, with Piper.” He nods to the brunette. “Heard she dates one of the upperclassmen. Some kid in the political science department. Bit of a hot head, according to Beckendorf.”

“Ah,” he says, nodding, raising his eyebrows and looking away. Percy was raised better than to stare, especially at girls with upperclassman, temperamental boyfriends. “I’ve had enough hot heads in my life.”

And she is suddenly here, a risen sun and warm, warm, warm smile.

“Hello,” she says, brave and beautiful and bright, “I’m Annabeth.” Flushed cheeks, sunshine, light eyes. In the sunlight, they look light blue. Her hand is lifted to her brow to deflect some of the sun, so he moves his body to block the sun from her face, and he sees that they’re actually grey. Her smile widens at the new shade.

“Percy,” he shakes her hand, and he wants to ask if the summer sun is burning her skin, or if she’s always so warm, warm, warm–

“Your hand is so warm, what the fuck,” Annabeth studies her hand, snorting again and he laughs at that noise more than anything. She looks at him incredulously, eyes owlish, as if she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

“I was going to say the same to you,” he confesses, and he chuckles at his own honesty. He blurts out: “You’re like a human furnace.”

You’re the sun, he had meant.

It sets her off for good now, and he thinks that she must be a little crazy or a mind-reader or both because she goes bonkers with giggling. Percy feels like they’ve already been friends for years, and he has to remind himself that he just met Annabeth. And he tells himself that he doesn’t have to fall in love with the first girl he meets at college, even though she makes him feel like he’s never stood in a shadow once in his life.

Beaming, glowing, radiating.

(This is how he falls in love with her.)

Percy loves to swim.

It’s the only time that he can focus, that his mind and body have one task that requires his undivided attention. Breathe and move. Breathe and move. Breathe and move. It’s fast, or at least he is fast. That’s why he’s here, he supposes, on a swim scholarship. To swim, breathe and move. He loves it.

But morning practices? Fuck that.

“Dude, you have to wake up or we’ll be late,” Jason bangs on his door, which Percy thinks is very nice of him. They’ve only lived together for four days and already he’s a living alarm clock. When Jason bangs on his door for the fourth time, Percy gets up, brushes his teeth, tapping his phone screen for a couple minutes just to make Jason wait. He finally meets his roommate in the living room.

“Beck is gonna kill us,” Jason says, eyes wide. So very awake.

“Beck doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” Percy waves his hand, throws his shoes on. “But I have to get some coffee or I might drown.”

“Dude,” Jason stares at him, blue eyes wide. “Get your ass in gear.”

They walk to the closest cafe to their on-campus apartment, and walk in. It’s six in the morning, but there’s already a few customers. He sees a couple sleeping on the tables, and one huddled in an oversized hoodie by the counter.

“Two coffees,” Percy orders and looks back at Jason, who at least has the grace to throw a dollar into the tip jar while Percy pays. The barista comes back slowly, her eyes drooping.

“To not drowning,” Jason tips his cup into the air. Percy raises his own cup and grins.

“To not drowning,” they hear from behind him, and Percy realizes that the patron in the oversized clothes is Annabeth.

She has books spread in front of her, and her hair is braided under the hood. Percy doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed her, because she’s suddenly the brightest one in the room, bulky sweatshirt or not.

“Hey,” Jason says to her, pleasant.

“You look like a goblin,” Percy tells her, because he hasn’t had his coffee yet and well, she does. A sunny goblin. But still. Goblin.

“You have dried drool on your face,” Annabeth gives back immediately, confused yet amused.

Percy grins. “Why are you here so early?”

“Piper snores,” Annabeth explains. “And I kinda like being close to coffee.”

“You think their mocha lattes are any good?” Percy gestures to the barista, who is sleeping on the counter space.

“Could be,” Annabeth nods appreciatively. “We’ve got psych at nine, don’t we? I could bring you one.” He had forgotten that they had compared schedules at orientation, that he’d be seeing her Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“You’d be an angel,” Percy laughs, and reminds himself that she has a boyfriend. An angel sun goblin with a hothead boyfriend.

“Dude,” Jason hisses, always so anxious before practice. “Beck will drown us.”

“Don’t drown on my behalf,” Annabeth laughs, waving them off. “See you later.”

“With coffee?” Percy reminds her, and if his face has a dorky smile, well, he can’t help it.

She salutes, smirking, before she goes back to her book.

(He wipes the drool off his face, she brings him a mocha latte, and he falls asleep in class.)

“Why are you so scared of me, bro?” Beck asks Jason. “I’m just the captain.”

“You’re the captain,” Jason repeats back, following him into the locker room. “Aren’t I supposed to be scared of you?”

“Who taught you that?” Percy asks, following behind Jason, splashing a bit of pool water into his friend’s face from his hair. “Like, specifically, who hurt you?”

“Fuck off, Jackson,” Jason whips his towel at his roommate but Percy dodges it. “Some of us were raised to be punctual and respect authority.”

“Were you a child soldier or something? No – no, Jesus, fuck, stop – “ Jason snaps his towel at Percy, who begins to slip on the tile in the locker room. Jason is relentless and for a second, Percy is actually afraid he’s gonna slip, hit his head, and die.

“Say uncle,” Jason chases him around a bench, and Percy falls against a locker.

“Fuck, Jason, I take it back. You were raised by fucking wolves or something – ow what the fuck!”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Beckendorf snaps, and just like that, Jason stops immediately, straightening up. “Before I scare the shit out of both of you?”

“Yes, sir.” Jason nods, but there’s a wild look in his eyes when he glares at Percy. Plotting, Percy realizes. He just stares blankly back because he’s pretty sure his roommate is a child soldier partially raised by wolves or something, fuck.

The next morning, Jason doesn’t wake him up for practice. By the time he dives into the pool an hour late, Percy has to make up for it with an afternoon doing laps. Jason joins him, of course, sitting on the bench with his laptop. He raises his head here and there, gives Percy a thumbs up, and goes back to typing, shit-eating grin on his face the whole time.

(Jason, Percy thinks, is an actual fucking wolf in disguise.)

“Percy,” Piper waves to him from the back of the class. “Get your butt over here.”

Piper, Annabeth’s roommate. They hadn’t spoken much at orientation, but Percy feels like he’s seen her everywhere since: outside of the pool, at the cafe, around his apartment building. Each time, she roped him into something like finding her classroom or grabbing lunch.

“Buy me coffee,” she had said three days prior, on the first day of classes. She hadn’t waited for an answer, either. She had pulled him by his backpack straps into the cafe, ordered a matcha latte (“Not coffee,” he had muttered and pulled out his wallet) and sat him down at a small table.

“Hello,” Percy had said slowly once the storm that is Piper calmed down. “Fancy seeing you again.”

“How’s college treating you?”

“Since I saw you this morning?” He had thrown her a weird look.

“How’s Jason liking college?” She had clarified, grinning like the Cheshire cat and Percy laughed at her for three whole minutes before she kicked him under the table. “Help a girl out.”

“Come over and play the Switch,” he had finally offered. “So you can stop stalking me and talk to him yourself.”

“Deal,” she had relaxed, then grinned, and he hadn’t liked the look of that, “Do you really drool in your sleep?”

Percy threw a crumpled napkin at her. “Shut up. Don’t listen to a word Annabeth says.”

“Oh my god,” Piper had burst out laughing, and Percy knew he'd made a friend. “That’s both cute and disgusting.”

“That’s my brand,” Percy had leaned forward to muss up her hair, and instead of swatting his hand away, she tried to lick it which. Okay. Pretty fucking weird, but so is Percy because then he had attempted to squeeze her nose off of her face with his index finger and thumb and only then did she swat his hand away.

“I won.”

“I hope you have Mario Party,” she glowered at him. “Because I’m going to kick your fucking ass.”

“Bossy,” he sticks his tongue out at her now, setting his bag down on the table, and taking a look around. “English lit, huh?”

“Sit next to me and let me use your notes.”

“Uh,” Percy looks around, checking to see if anyone else heard her bid to sorta cheat. He doesn’t personally care, but he’s used to high school mentality. He is still learning that college students and professors don’t give a shit. “Goodmorning, I guess.”

“Hazel won’t let me use hers, that brat,” Piper explains, and she gives him a pleading smile. She even tries to blink her eyes, but all he can think about is how she had raided his fridge and flirted with his roommate and then flicked him in the ear in goodbye the last time he saw her. His sympathy is lacking, he finds.

A short girl with smooth, brown skin turns around in her seat in front of them, a levelled look on her face. “Piper, write your own notes.”

“I have ADHD,” Piper whines, and Percy grins. “It’s hard to concentrate.”

“Hey, me too! ADHD squad.” They high-five and Hazel gets a glazed look on her face.

“I’m Hazel,” she reaches her hand forward. Her hair is in tight curls, and it frames her face prettily. The guy next to her throws her a mystified look before he continues drawing on his tablet. “One of Piper’s roommates.”

“Percy,” he shakes her hand. She gives him a sweet smile. And just to piss Piper off, “Do you like Mario Party?”

“I don’t know what that is,” she responds warily, and the guy next to her can seemingly no longer stay quiet.

“I’m Leo,” he blurts out, and Hazel starts at his pressured speech. “I also have ADHD – hashtag squad – and kick ass at Mario Party.”

“Woah,” Piper is the first to speak. “I like your energy, kid.”

Leo grins, Percy grins, Piper grins, and Hazel is outnumbered.

“No one is borrowing my notes,” she hisses as their professor begins talking.

“Winner gets Hazel’s notes,” Piper leans forward to whisper between Percy and Leo. “Let’s go to Percy’s after this.”

“Dude, I’m texting my roommate Frank, what’s your dorm number?”

(Hazel kicks their asses, Piper gets Jason’s number, and Leo and Hazel and also Frank become a fixture in Percy’s life.)

“I already have a compost pile started in the woods,” Grover gushes over Skype, and Percy feels sad, sad, sad. “And I met the president of the sustainability club. I’m swooning. I’ve swooned. Totally fucked, probably, because her name is Juniper.”

He misses his best friend, Grover, something awful. If only he had gotten a scholarship, Percy would be upstate with his friend right now. It makes him even sadder to look up from his laptop and see Jason attempting to write his sociology paper, glasses crooked on his face. Percy wonders if there’s enough room in someone’s heart to feel so much for so many people. Surely, he thinks, these people don’t feel the same towards him.

“Bro,” Jason calls over, “did you say ‘Jupiter’?”

“Percy, let me see that brickhead,” Grover waves his hand, and Percy lifts the laptop so his best friend can see Jason huddled on the couch. “Why the fuck would her name be ‘Jupiter’?”

“Percy’s name is Perseus,” Jason blinks, like that’s a proper explanation.

“Don’t bring me into this,” Percy shakes his head. “Perseus is Greek, by the way.”

“Her name is Juniper,” Grover continues, and Percy lowers the laptop again, knowing that this will go on for a while. He grins at his best friend, visibly swooning. “Like the tree.”

“Like the tree,” Jason mutters from the couch, and Percy stifles a laugh. He wishes Grover were here most days, but he’s happy that his best friend is thriving upstate, the woods and rolling hills providing comfort.

“Tell me about the tree,” Percy stretches out on the floor, putting his chin on his hands.

Grover sighs dreamily and Jason chuckles again.

“Dude,” Percy swats at the air towards his roommate. “Have you texted Piper back yet?”

“I’ve got a paper to write,” Jason’s face reddens. “Due tomorrow.”

“Juniper makes her own soap,” Grover finally settles on a topic.

“Sustainable,” Percy comments.

“You get it,” Grover grins, and he looks like the twelve year old that Percy befriended in sixth grade. “Unlike your brickhead roommate. I miss you.”

(Jason is grinning behind his laptop screen like the brickhead he is, and Percy thinks that maybe his friends are just as fond of him as he is of them.)

“Dude, why are you tapping your phone like that?’ Frank asks Percy, eyebrows furrowed.

“No reason,” Percy taps the screen one last time, locks his phone and shoves it into his back pocket.

“Um,” Leo stares incredulously. “That was fucking sus.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Percy responds.

>Percy (0845): hey it’s percy i’m gonna be late to class lmao save me a seat
>Annabeth (0845): No.
>Percy (0846): is this because i called u a goblin that one time???
>Annabeth (0847): It’s because you invited the entire campus to play Switch and excluded me.
>Percy (0847): are u serious??? just come over after class. jason bought mario kart
>Annabeth (0850): No.
>Percy (0851): oh my fucking god you’re so dramatic please save me a seat i am bringing coffee
>Annabeth (0853): Why are you getting coffee if you’re going to be late? Hm?
>Percy (0853): priorities
>Percy (0856): annabeth??? You’ll save me a seat??
>Percy (0859): ok see u in class, where you’ll have a seat saved for me
>Percy (0910): got coffee!! Omw
>Percy (0922): wtf why didn’t you tell me that class is cancelled? I ran here
>Annabeth (0922): what’s ur dorm number i’m bringing piper :)
>Percy (0923): what the fuck
>Percy (0923): building C 205
>Annabeth (0925): bring the coffee. See u soon buddy :~)
>Percy (0926): im gonna blue shell u into oblivion

(Piper starts a massive group chat and Jason complains about it until he realizes he can just silence his notifications.)

Jason runs into Reyna, literally, in the quad. She holds him by his arms like he’s a small child and tells him, very politely, to watch where he’s going. Percy laughs so hard that Reyna turns to look at him and tells him, very politely, to watch who he’s laughing at.

“You’re terrifying,” he tells her.

She smiles, and her face is friendly. He likes her immediately.

“You should meet my roommate Nico,” Reyna crosses her arms. “Pretty sure he summons the dead.”

“Sounds like a charmer,” Jason sputters out. “You any good at Mario Kart?”

“As long as I get to play as Peach,” Reyna nods, “with the sport bike. 200CC or it’s not a race.”

“Woah,” Percy trips over a loose cobblestone. “I’d like to introduce you to my friend Annabeth. I think you’ll get along.”

“Can Nico come?”

“Who else is gonna bring the zombies?” Percy stares at her.

(Nico plays as Bowser, and is the most terrifying, small person that Percy has ever met. He and Reyna are immediately added to the group chat.)

“I’m going to call you Beth,” he decides one day, watching Annabeth pretend to sleep on the grass outside of the library.

“Your head is full of chlorine,” she says, keeping her eyes closed.

“It was that or Anna Elizabeth,” he threatens, knowing her aversion to that name.

“And seaweed,” she muses, hands crossed on her stomach. Percy rolls on his back and looks up at the sky. The clouds are puffy, and the sun is blinding. He closes his eyes and pretends to sleep, too.

It’s nice, he thinks, to lay beside her in silence. Well, as silent as it can be with the sounds of campus life around them. Annabeth had asked him to sit outside with her after class, saying that she needs to catch as much sunshine as she can before the New York winter.

Minutes pass, and it’s comfortable.

“My boyfriend Luke hates California,” Annabeth breaks the silence. He opens his eyes, watches her talk. “I met him when I was a freshman in high school. Followed him here, all the way to the East Coast.”

“Oh,” Percy says stupidly. He almost forgot that she has a boyfriend, someone that he’s never met and rarely hears about. “You wanna tell me more about him?”

Annabeth laughs nervously. ”His name is Luke. He’s a senior, studies poli sci.”

“You started dating when you were a freshman in high school?” Percy blurts out, doing the math in his head. “Uh.”

“No,” Annabeth shakes her head, and he knows she’s lying to him.

“You’re lying,” Percy points out, not unkindly. “Don’t lie to me, please.”

“You’re right,” she nods. “Sorry, it’s a stupid thing to lie about.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Especially since that shit can be cross-referenced on Facebook.”

Annabeth giggles at that, and he feels the sun on his arms and legs and fingertips. “You have a Facebook?”

Percy groans, shoving her leg. He has no excuse, really. Rachel made it for him years ago, and he’s pretty sure that his profile picture is of him with a toy sword.

“Add me on Facebook,” she reaches for his phone, unlocking it. “Wow, no passcode. Look at you.”

“I have very little secrets,” he says, prim, and she rolls her eyes, swiping through his apps. Percy feels his eyes widen but it’s too late.

“Tap Tap Fish, really?” Annabeth’s eyes widen at him, amusement on her face, and he eats his words. Percy tries to snatch his phone away, but she’s faster than him, rolling away on the lawn. There’s a grass stain on the back of her white shirt, and he doesn’t tell her, honesty be damned. He’s not ready to share that secret.

“How else am I supposed to get through my history pre-req?” He tries to reach again, he reaches over her torso. Her arms are outstretched in the same direction, phone just out of his grasp, a look of glee on her face. “Annabeth, don’t Tap Tap Fish for me, I wanna do it myself.”

Annabeth studies his aquarium, dorky look on her face. “Wow, you’ve put a lot of time into this.”

“My pride and joy,” he finally snatches his phone, watches the marlin swim around the volcano in the center of his aquarium. He tap-tap-taps and she watches over his shoulder. Annabeth smells like lemons and sunshine. He can feel her buzz with excitement.

Finally, Percy sighs, handing her the phone before he puts his chin on her shoulder and watches as she tap-tap-taps, driven by the bubbles and treasure rewards. She earns a new type of angel fish and elbows his ribs in her bodily excitement.

“Ooo,” she coos, taking a screenshot on his phone, sending it in the groupchat like a proud parent.

>Nico (1308): no percy
>Frank (1310): yessss tap tap
>Reyna (1310): no
>Jason (1311): percy u need an intervention. it’s not healthy

Annabeth huffs in indignation, and he watches as she grabs her own phone, typing furiously.

>Annabeth (1312): don’t be fucking rude
>Piper (1312): ok kim

Percy howls in laughter at that, her face twisted into a scowl. He presses his forehead to her shoulder. Her fucking face, he thinks. She does what she wants and he thinks she’s the funniest person he’s ever met. A couple weeks of college is all it took for Percy to find his people. He has to communicate this somehow, communicate his fondness. He grabs his phone.

>Percy (1314): fucking fuck i love all of u as much as i love that angel fish

Annabeth gets the notification and she tries to whack him, but he gently grabs her wrist and pulls her down next to him, facing the sky. She snorts, and when her phone pings with notifications, she tosses it beside her, wiggling to his side.

“I could take a nap right here,” Percy stretches his arms behind his head. The back of his eyelids are pink against the brightness.

“I love the sun,” Annabeth sighs.

“Goodnight,” he settles more comfortably on the ground, and her elbow rests on his stomach.

Percy lets the late August sun settle into his skin, and the scent of lemons and chlorine makes him feel hazy. He’s close to sleep, his chest rising and falling despite the sound of college life around him. She speaks and he feels his heart thump back awake.

“I don’t think he likes that I’m here, even though it was his idea. At college, I mean. His college.” Her voice is soft, but he can hear her conviction. His college, Percy considers, hm. Hothead.

“Did he say that?” Percy asks, opening his eyes, and she shakes her head, her own eyes shut tightly.

“I can just tell, plain as day.” And he believes her, though he doesn’t understand why she has to go through that. “He’s not happy I’m here.”

“I’m happy you’re here,” Percy says, not sure what else to say. “You give me your psych notes and you bring me coffee and you got me the angel fish.”

She laughs, opening her eyes to look at him. “I think I’m just being dramatic. It’s probably all in my head.”

“You are dramatic,” he acknowledges. “But you shouldn’t brush yourself off like that.”

Annabeth shrugs, closing her eyes again. Her hair is splayed out on the grass, and she looks older when she is lost in her thoughts. Percy wants to say more, wants to tell her that he wouldn’t be at the sun’s mercy if it weren’t for her. He feels like she’s showing a bit of herself, right here in broad daylight.

“Beth?” Percy tries the nickname out.

“Seaweed Brain?” Annabeth tries the nickname out.

“The sunshine feels nice,” he feels a slow burn on his face, a side effect of being so exposed.

“I never want the sun to set,” she responds, and he agrees internally. “I read that New York winters can be tough.”

Percy can hear the vulnerability in her voice. The changing weather, the unpredictability of being in this part of the country, a new life with new weather and new friends all under the same sun.

“The sun comes back, even when it feels like it won’t,” he promises after a beat. “That’s just New York.”

(They fall asleep and then he walks her to her dorm. Grey skies have formed as he treks home, a promise of autumn.)
.

His professor is talking about Mesopotamia and he tap-tap-taps.

>Beth (1450): are u tapping in class right now
>Percy (1451): wanna see my new percula clownfish
>Beth (1451): yes i very much do
>Percy (1452): [image sent]
>Beth (1543): [image sent]
>Beth (1543): look at my lil school of minnows !!!
>Beth (1544): come over after class and tap tap w me
>Percy (1545): can we order pizza

(Piper and Jason try to stage an intervention. Annabeth throws a slice of pepperoni at them.)

“Are you awake?” Annabeth whispers, nudging his side with her foot. “Percy?”

It is barely morning. There was a plan to pull an all-nighter, a chance to catch up on assignments and encourage each other. Laptops and textbooks were closed by midnight, a movie playing on the TV, and a heated debate about Severus Snape that lasted until two AM.

Percy must have fallen asleep first, he realizes, looking up at Annabeth. Hazel’s head is tucked into his side, Leo and Piper snoring across the couch, and his chest feels warm with affection for his friends.

There’s a grey morning light streaming through her living room window, and Annabeth is wearing an oversized hoodie again. Her eyes are dark, and her hair is braided. He blinks and blinks. September mornings: a remnant of bright light, a shadow just ahead, death of summer. She’s pretty, he registers, and blinks again.

“I’m awake,” he manages, voice sleepy, sitting up.

“Come with me?” Her hands are twisting in front of her, face pulled into a slight frown.

There is something wrong, he knows. Percy unwraps himself from Hazel’s arm and removes a post-it note from Jason’s forehead on his way to the door. Simp, it reads and when he shows Annabeth, she smiles and it's off. Her smile is off and the sun is only just rising but he worries that her day is already ruined.

“Can I brush my teeth first?” He asks, reaching for his bag. “Unless you have a death wish?”

“Please do,” she rolls her eyes, and he sees a better smile.

When he is ready, he finds Annabeth brushing the hair from Reyna’s face, a blanket over Nico, and a new post-it note on Jason’s forehead: P and A are getting coffee, behave until we get back.

Annabeth leads him out of her apartment, her hands stuffed into her hoodie, and her face stiff. Campus is still asleep around them, a chilled and decaying breeze. He wonders what went wrong: just last night she paced in front of all of them, face red, ranting about Harry Potter. Percy had thought that she looked alive, a red star and burning argument. Now, there is a pink sun rising and a darkening conviction. He holds the door open for her when they arrive, and she blinks at him in surprise. Percy thinks that she forgot his presence while stuck in her thoughts, their silence.

Percy waves her to sit down while buys their favorite drinks, and the barista rolls her eyes before handing them over. His face feels warm but he pushes the feeling away.

Annabeth’s hands shake when she takes a sip, her offered smile forced, eyes rimmed red in the bright light. Her phone sits on the table between them, screen down, and buzzes. Her eyes flicker to it, and it does not go unmissed. Percy’s chest fills with more worry. What happened? He wants to ask, wants to explore, but their friendship is both strong and unsteady, college and sunshine casting highlights and shadows he is still learning.

“Did you get a lot of work done last night?” She finally asks, fingers picking at her paper cup. Her phone buzzes between them.

“What happened, Beth?” Percy inquires, ignoring her evasion and his own caution. It is not the earliness of dawn that softens his voice. She does this, he learns, when she wants to talk around a topic. Annabeth can be coded and unclear and confused. Hazy, he categorizes.

Her face crumples and it’s too early for this, he thinks. The sky is pink and the dew on the grass is drowning him and Annabeth is crying. Her phone buzzes on the table between them again. A fight between a set sun and a rising sun and Harry Potter and laughter, if he were to guess. Hothead and sunshine goblin and shadows.

“Oh,” he sits back in his chair when she covers her face with her hands. Percy wants to offer a hug or a hand to hold but she is hiding in the soft glare of autumn morning light. She lets herself cry for less than a minute.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Annabeth wipes her face with a napkin. She takes a steadying breath and gives him an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry for waking you up just to be a baby. I know you love to sleep.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Percy presses. She nods, eyes red and face pink. Annabeth is on the brink of another round of tears, he can tell and his chest hurts. “Wanna play Tap Tap instead?”

She lets out a laugh, quick and genuine. “Now?”

“Why not?” Percy shrugs and grins. “No one is gonna be up before eight anyway. They can wait.”

Annabeth studies him, and he studies her back. He won’t push her, he knows. She knows this, too, and smiles at him. She stands, gesturing to the leather lounge chairs near the window. “Think we can fit in one chair?”

Percy follows her, throwing himself down into one, testing it out. There’s enough space for her, probably, but it’d be a tight squeeze. He raises his eyebrows, questioning. Annabeth shakes her head fondly and budges next to him anyway, her legs thrown over his, his arm thrown over her shoulder. She’s close and she smells like coffee and laundry soap. Percy thinks that this is platonic, that the pinkness in his face is from the sunrise, that she is wiggling for comfort not closeness.

“Tap Tap,” she demands, not impatiently.

“Tap Tap,” he acquiesces, pulling out his own phone, and her head presses into his shoulder.

It is nice, sitting close and comfortable and warm. The espresso machine whirs as campus wakes up and spoons clank against ceramicware in the background, but they tap, tap, tap.

(The sun rises, she falls asleep against him, and he catches the barista rolling her eyes again. Annabeth wakes too soon and their friends text begging for coffee.)

>Percy (1214): i got a ridley turtle
>Beth (1215): pics or it didn’t happen seaweed brain
>Percy (1215): [image sent]
>Beth (1216): that’s a nice turtle but it reminds me
>Beth (1217): remember when u were in first place and i used the blue shell and u screamed
>Percy (1217): blocked
>Percy (1218): rematch tonight?
>Beth (1219): i’ll text in the gc for witnesses
>Beth (1220): (for when u lose again)
>Percy (1221): blocked

(They both lose to Hazel and they all go to a diner for dinner, renewed Mario Kart threats and fries thrown over the sticky table.)

“Spend the night, I guess,” Percy waves at his friends, sprawled across his and Jason’s floor. “But I’m taking the controllers, it’s three in the morning.”

“Yes, mother,” Nico mutters, settling next to Reyna on the couch, already fast asleep. Percy throws a blanket at them.

“Percy,” Leo stands and stretches before he slumps back down onto the floor. “Let me sleep in your bed.”

“No,” Frank snaps awake. “I get to.”

“None of you get to,” Percy tells them. Fuck that, he didn’t come close to first place during any race.

“Please,” he hears a muffled plea. Annabeth’s curled around an end table, her eyes sleepily looking around. “I need a real bed.”

“I need a real bed,” Percy reminds them. “Coach Hedge is running drills tomorrow morning.”

“What time?” Annabeth asks, like this is an actual debate, head tilted to the side.

“No,” he tells her.

“Eight?” She guesses. “Nine? Ten?”

It’s ten, because it’ll be Saturday. Or is Saturday. He doesn’t know so he says nothing. Percy is more concerned that she knows what time his practice is.

“I will follow you into that room,” she threatens him, and he believes her. “Piper and Hazel have already taken Jason’s bed, and there’s not an equal distribution of rest wealth around here. What kind of household is this? Are friends not welcome comfort?”

Percy stares at her, because she’s actually serious. What the fuck, he thinks. Annabeth is making a true effort to talk herself into his bed when she has no chance, dramatic speech and all.

“I wish I had the energy to argue that well,” Frank admires her from the floor, sharing a blanket with Leo, who is already asleep. “Can you throw me a pillow?”

Annabeth throws one of Jason’s sweatshirts, and Frank balls it up under his head and smiles. “Goodnight, Annabeth. Fuck you, Percy.”

“What the fuck,” he sighs aloud this time, less energy to defend himself. He should have done what Jason is doing and made camp on his bedroom floor to appease the masses.

Annabeth looks at him pointedly, and he hates the fact that she’s grinning.

“No,” Percy argues, but it’s weaker now. “There’s not enough room.”

“Sleep on the floor,” she shrugs.

“I meant for you,” Percy follows her down the hall. When she flips on his lightswitch, she jumps into bed. “Beth, I swear to god. I’ll snore all night.”

“Used to it,” she climbs under the blankets. Percy tries to tell himself that it’s a comment about Piper and not. You know. Her allegedly hothead boyfriend. He sets the Switch controllers on his desk and turns to her.

“Are you really gonna make me sleep on the floor?” He finally sighs, looking at her shit-eating grin. “This is fucked.”

“You’re fucked,” Annabeth rolls onto her side, dark circles under her eyes. “If Coach Hedge catches you slacking tomorrow.”

“I hate that you’re right,” Percy sighs, closing his eyes and deep breathing. “You’re insufferable.”

“Just trying to redistribute the wealth, that’s all,” she says sardonically, sitting up. “Just get in here and stop being a weirdo.”

Percy flips the light switch and tackles her back down. Annabeth kicks his shin before she settles comfortably. “Will you really snore?” She asks, yawning.

“Nah,” he whispers. “Try not to kick me in your sleep. I need my legs, you know.”

“You and your swim scholarship,” he feels her shake her head, strands of hair tickling his face.

“Go to sleep so I can keep that scholarship,” he pinches her arm. Annabeth swats him back. “Goodnight, you socialist.”

“Goodnight,” she says, triumphantly, and he wants to let her win and win and win.

“Tap, tap, tap,” Percy’s index finger boops her nose three times.

Annabeth giggles, quiet and sweet and soft.

“Tap, tap, tap,” she repeats, barely a whisper, finger dancing on his shoulder.

It’s bright in his room, a miniature star beside him, moon forgotten.

(He wakes up with blonde hair up his nose, Leo curled at the foot of the bed, and late to practice.)

“I can’t do it,” Percy bends down to put his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Annabeth jogs in circles around him like the demon she is. A sunshine goblin demon.

“Aren’t you a college athlete?” She hops from foot to foot, blonde curls bouncing with every step, dancing light.

“Swimming is about speed, not endurance, fuck,” he gets out, lowering his body onto the sidewalk. He doesn’t care if someone runs him over.

“You said you wanted to run with me!” Annabeth reminds him, settling onto the ground beside him. “Remember when I said Reyna wouldn’t run with me and I was sad and you said that Reyna is just jealous that I have a better mile time than her and then Reyna said she runs for a long time and not a fast time and then you said you’d run with me for a fast time and for a long time because you’re a college athlete and I was so excited because it’s been weeks since I’ve had a good run, Percy, do you remember?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” is all he can say to that.

He turns his head to look at her. There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead, and he’s ignoring her running outfit because he’s not a creep. She is wide awake, exhilarated, and shining. Sweat drips into his eyes and he thinks she’s going to kill him.

“We are on mile five,” Annabeth continues and Percy’s side spasms. “It’s two miles back to campus, do you think you can do it?”

“I’m a college athlete,” Percy tries to stand before he falls back down.

She giggles at him, and it’s not mocking. It’s cute, as if she’s fond. “Wanna take a Tap Tap break?”

“Yes,” Percy exhales, lungs on fire. He grabs his phone from its holder on his bicep and scooches to sit close to her. Annabeth is dripping as much sweat as he is, hair plastered to her forehead, but he still pulls her to his side, their legs pressed together. “Tap, tap, tap.”

Annabeth turns her head to look at him, and she’s close, close, close. She smiles wide, and he can count her freckles, “Tap, tap, tap.”

(They laugh and stretch out in their gross sweat, the sun setting on the horizon and Percy forces Jason to come pick them up even though he could probably run a marathon by her side.)

It’s September twenty-first and the temperature dips below sixty. Annabeth suggests movie night, already wearing a cardigan in class and announcing autumn’s arrival.

>Beth (0917): scary movie night at ours tonight?

“Sure,” Percy agrees aloud, watching her text under the table as their psychology professor prattles about Pavlov.

“Save it for the group chat,” Annabeth rolls her eyes at him. He unlocks his phone again.

>Percy (0918): sure
>Jason (0920): aren’t u both in class right now couldn’t you have said this in person

Percy throws Annabeth a look. She stares back. He thinks she is pretty.

>Beth (0920): nnnnno
>Percy (0921): yes
>Nico (0922): stfu??

He kicks her ankle under the table. She kicks him back twice as hard.

He taps, taps, taps on the table. She taps, taps, taps back. Annabeth giggles under her breath and he suppresses a grin.

Percy and Jason are the last to arrive later, and Jason flicks pool water onto Hazel before she punches him.

“Gross,” she complains.

“Not as gross as that,” Percy gestures over to Jason saying hello to Piper.

“Agreed,” Leo pretends to gag, setting up his laptop to the TV.

“Where’s Annabeth?” Percy throws himself onto the couch. “I wanna show her my new starfish.”

“Annabeth!” Hazel calls. “Come socialize.”

Percy hears the sound of her bedroom door opening in the hallway, and pulls out his phone. He might have taken multiple screenshots of his new little guy, but who cares?

“Time to socialize,” Percy hears, and he does not look up, attributing the new voice to Leo mocking Hazel.

Then he hears it: Annabeth giggles, and it's guttural and breathy all at once.

Percy looks up, because he has never heard that sound from her before. He has heard her stifling laughs as he trips over his own feet. He has heard her giggle at a bad joke in class. He has heard her laugh in the dead of night, their friends sleeping around them. He has heard her giggle at herself, delirious and sleep-deprived, determined to finish an assignment. He has heard her giggle over FaceTime. Giggling, sunshine audio. He has heard it.

But Percy hasn’t heard the noise she reserves for her boyfriend, and he doesn’t hear the sunshine.

Percy straightens on the couch, alarmed and unwarned. It’s stupid, he tells himself. This is her apartment. Luke makes eye contact with him, and Percy is taken aback. Blue, he thinks first and then, critical. Annabeth’s arm is wrapped around her boyfriend’s waist, and Percy’s eyes are drawn to it before Jason stands to shake his hand.

“Luke,” the senior introduces himself.

Percy feels caught, like a Tap Tap fish in a lonely aquarium. He stands anyway, reminding himself that he knows how to swim. He stretches out his hand, but Luke beats him to the punch.

“Percy?” Luke asks, and there’s an edge to his voice that he didn’t have with Jason.

“Nice to meet you,” Percy’s mouth feels dry, and he can’t tell if he’s dehydrated or sunburnt. Maybe both.

“Percy keeps me sane,” Annabeth says after a beat, voice diplomatic. “I can’t believe it’s taken so long for everyone to meet.”

Luke shrugs, like the thought hasn’t crossed his mind, and sits on the couch, Annabeth following to his side. Percy is left standing, his phone in his hand, his little Tap Tap fish game offering bubble sounds in the quiet room. Jason throws him a concerned look, so he shakes himself out of his discomfort and sits on the floor.

“Whatcha got there?” Luke nods to Percy’s phone.

“Tap Tap Fish,” he answers, offering a friendly smile, offering his phone. Luke doesn’t take either.

Luke groans and laughs, and Annabeth freezes, a miniature sunburst shaded. “Did Annabeth get you onto that stupid fucking game? I’ve been asking her to delete it for weeks.”

Percy shrugs, looking at Annabeth for guidance. She smiles, tight-lipped, shoulders tense. He thinks about her words from weeks before.

He’s not happy I’m here.

Luke isn’t happy to be here, Percy would say if anyone asks him. They don’t.

The night goes on, autumn creeping into the apartment. Percy doesn’t move a muscle, unsure of this stranger. He thinks about his other friends, the chance meetings that have led to easiness and laughter. Luke offers no such friendliness. He won’t be coming over to play the Switch, Percy knows.

Percy wants to turn around, wants to tell Annabeth about his day, wants to ask about hers, but he doesn’t want to overstep. There’s a line being drawn, an overcasting shadow. Percy’s fingers move on their own accord the entire night.

Tap, tap, tap.

(He hears nothing in return and is afraid to name the emotion he feels in her silence.)

“Open up,” he hears Annabeth bark, but he chooses to ignore her, twisting under his comforter and closing his eyes. If she wants to come in and force him out of bed, he thinks, she can at least open his bedroom door.

Only she must kick it open or something, because Percy jolts awake at a loud bang and sees her standing in his doorway, hair flying about her head and a murderous look on her face. She’s also holding a drink carrier, so Percy pulls the blankets over his shoulders and starts with that.

“One of those for me?” He points to a cup, raising an eyebrow. He thinks he can smell cocoa.

“Yes, mocha latte,” she seethes, storming through his room to sit at his desk chair. Percy idly wonders how she got into his building, and if Jason was awake to let her in. He wouldn’t be surprised if she copied his key, now that he thinks about it. Annabeth hands him a paper cup before she throws herself back into the chair, crossing her arms, and tapping a foot against the floor. Her face is flushed.

Percy lets her stew for a moment, sitting up and taking a sip of his coffee. He figures he can forgive her for coming over unannounced. “Are you going to let me put a shirt on before you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Ugh,” she groans, finding a shirt on his floor and throwing it at him.

“Okay,” he gestures for her to start.

“Your stupid fucking RA,” she throws her hands up, and the morning light hits her hair, creating a halo. “He’s stupid and rude and fucking stupid, Percy. I was outside your building at seven-thirty, but he made me wait until eight. I reminded him that I have, in fact, spent the night here, but that only made him angrier. He wanted to know what right I had to do that and when I told him my right was our nine AM psychology lecture but that fucker –”

Annabeth is bright, bright, bright. Percy can only stare, can only see that she is lighting up his entire room, that her indignation is sunfire, and the feeling in his chest is from a sunbeam and he’s burning, burning, burning under her. Like a beautiful mini-furnace sun goblin.

She continues, hands flying wildly about her, but he can’t hear a single word. “He wanted my student ID, can you believe that? For wanting to drop off coffee, Percy, coffee? I didn’t give it to him, of course, I am not a fucking idi–”

“Wanna play Tap Tap?” He interrupts her, offering a warm smile

“What?” Annabeth’s hands fall, her bursting energy sapped from her words.

“Tap Tap,” he reiterates, reaching over to pick up his phone. “Tap Tap Fish?” Percy asks again when her face is blank, as if this isn’t a game they have played together for weeks.

“Oh,” she exhales, and Percy can feel a shadow. “I deleted it.”

(Only hearts in love can break, he realizes, and feels cold.)

Chapter 2: deniability, baby

Summary:

Subdued, a different angle on the earth, contemplative.

Chapter Text

>Beth (1230): hey wanna grab lunch?

>Percy (1534): hey sorry i was at class and then the gym

>Beth (1535): okie wanna hang out?

>Percy (1615): can’t, jason and i have to go to the store :((((

>Beth (1616): okie :(

There’s a flash of blond outside of Jason’s classroom as Percy waits for his roommate’s class to end. They are running late for practice, but at this point, Percy doesn’t even care. Jason has not learned this. As he waits, Percy’s eyes catch the light-colored hair automatically. It’s Luke, standing in a small group of upperclassmen, waiting for an office door to open.

Luke makes eye contact with him quickly – critical, again – before he turns his head to talk to a classmate. Percy was recognized, he knows, but not acknowledged. There’s a rush in the hallway, bodies pushing against each other on their way to and from class. He is grateful for the distance between him and Luke, though he does not name a reason.

Jason’s class ends, and he comes bustling out, his glasses pushed up into his hair, and Percy is immediately distracted with his roommate’s quick movements.

“You okay?” Percy walks beside his roommate towards the door. Jason’s glasses fall onto his nose and his jaw clenches.

“I think I want to go into law or international relations or something,” Jason says, voice leveled. They weave in and out of the busy foyer, and step outside. The late September sun is blinding. “Every time there’s a debate in my Ethics class, someone says some stupid shit and I wanna be able to just, like, shut them down.”

“Yeah?” Percy jogs beside his friend, and they can see the athletic center up ahead.

Jason’s glasses jostle as he jogs. “We’re gonna be late, fuck!”

Percy doesn’t even argue, sensing his friend’s agitation. “Saw Luke back there.”

Jason doesn’t respond, instead reaching to open the doors to the pool building. When they see their teammates waiting for the locker room to be unlocked, Jason finally sighs.

“Look,” Jason leans against the concrete wall, relieved to not be late. “I didn’t want to say anything, because I know you’re close with Annabeth, but…”

Close with Annabeth. He tells himself that the pain in his side is from running to the athletic center. “What?” Percy tries to keep his voice neutral. It sorta works.

Jason gives him a weird look, like he’s unsure if he’s allowed to say anything. “Luke is… well, when I said that people say stupid shit during class discussions – he’s kinda known for that? Like, in the poli sci department – which is small, as you know – Luke is known as, like, a devil’s advocate.”

Percy stares, and his mind whirs and whirs, trying to understand what Jason is not saying. He does not have much experience in debate or class discourse or anything of the sort. But he knows what a devil’s advocate can be, and he knows that Jason wouldn’t hold an unearned opinion.

His brain slows and he responds, “So, he’s an asshole?”

Jason shrugs and raises his eyebrows.

(Beck unlocks the locker room door, Percy sets a new PR, and Jason buys them Thai curry for dinner to celebrate.)

“Leo, I swear to god, if you hit me with another green shell one more fucking– What the fuck! ”

“Sorry, Frank!”

Percy laughs and uses the chance to gain first place. It lasts a whole thirty seconds before Hazel whizzes by, her body moving along with her controller. It’s an endearing habit of hers, and Percy is distracted by her facial expressions – glee, nervousness, then glee again – through each turn that he falls back into second place.

“Hazel, you’re too distracting,” he nudges his knee with hers.

“Huh?”

“The faces you make while playing. You’re like a little kid. I’d kill a man for you, probably.”

“Percy, why would you ever need to kill a man for me?”

“I wouldn’t need a reason, probably.”

“You idiot,” she nudges him back.

“Leo, I swear to fucking God–”

“You’re gonna fuck God?”

Frank groans and hits his own thigh with his fist. “Every damn time!”

“Dude, blame the computer. I can’t control which items I get.”

“But you can control who you throw the shells at, right?”

Leo sniffs, setting another green shell off. “I suppose.”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“I’m gonna red shell ya next time.”

“Percy,” Hazel leans to the right as she drives Toadette around a corner. “Would you kill Frank and Leo for me? Like, right now?”

Percy dodges a banana peel. He considers Hazel’s request. He had said one man, after all, and Frank is kinda built. Hazel sticks her tongue out of her mouth in her concentration. It is Rainbow Road, and Percy is distracted by her determination to kick their asses. Plus, he thinks and his heart swells with affection, he feels like a big brother watching his little sister. Percy hopes he’ll have this relationship with Estelle one day.

Hazel gets first place and throws her hands up in the air, turning to Percy with pure happiness, like she doesn’t come in first place each time.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” he decides, pausing the game before he can pass the finish line.

“Wait, what?” Frank asks right before Percy tackles him off the couch.

(Frank is laughing too hard to fight Percy back, Leo tries to drag Hazel onto the floor, but she body-slams him before he can even blink. Percy leaves Frank and Leo’s apartment with friendly bruises, a memory to hold onto.)

“Run with me tomorrow morning,” Annabeth leans against his arm, her feet tucked under her as she sits on his couch.

“Tomorrow morning?” Percy flips through Jason’s Netflix queue, his arm burning where she presses her head. “Can’t, got swim.”

Annabeth huffs and turns her body, so that the weight of her torso is fully on his arm, which makes sifting through Netflix kinda difficult. He doesn’t tell her this, instead he chuckles at her dramatic reaction. “Don’t laugh at me, Percy. I have so much energy I need to get out and it’s getting colder outside. What’s a girl to do?”

He moves the arm that was supporting her body, setting it along the top of the couch. Annabeth lowers her head and shoulders into his lap, looking up at him. Her hair is in another messy braid and there’s a smudge of ink on her jaw. He wonders how it got there, if she fell asleep on her calculus homework again. He wants to ask, but his chest swells with fondness and he is afraid to do so.

“Come swimming with me,” he suggests, elated, pressured speech. “Tonight. There’s open swim at the pool.”

Annabeth blinks up at him, like she had never considered swimming once in her life, and then her face breaks into a smile. Fucking fuck, he thinks. There’s no reason for that to be so cute. Her face falls and his fondness seeps out between his ribs.

“I’ve got a date tonight,” she tells him, blinking again, but slower – apologetic. “We’re supposed to see a movie.”

“Ah,” he nods, looking back at the TV. Jason’s got a lot of documentaries on his “Recently Watched” list and Percy picks a few to mock him about later. It’s easier than naming his emotion. There’s a Planet Earth series he hasn’t seen before, so Percy clicks it on. “Maybe next time.”

“I haven’t seen you half as much as I’d like to see you lately,” Annabeth says blithely, like her words don’t send a course of electricity through Percy’s spine. He chides himself for the way his heart quickens, demanding that he calm down. She’s just a friend with a boyfriend, he remembers. “Have you been ignoring me?”

Percy has and has not been ignoring her. It has only been a week since she told him that she had deleted the app off of her phone, and he can’t help but feel left behind. Which is stupid, he reminds himself for the umpteenth time, since it’s just an app. But – this is when he feels angry on her behalf – if it’s just an app, why did she have to delete it?

Annabeth had shrugged, self-conscious, that morning in his bedroom. “I was spending too much time on it,” she had answered the question he had not asked aloud.

“Were you, though?” Percy had blurted, standing from his bed. They had class soon, and she was nice to bring him a mocha latte, but each time he took a sip all he had tasted was an apology, a boundary, and a cold shadow. “Did you spend that much time on it?”

Or were you spending too much time with me? He had really wanted to ask.

Instead, he threw on a pair of sweatpants over his boxers, ignoring the way she was surprised to see him get changed in front of her, like she expected a shift between them but not this one. If she wanted to be self-conscious – if she wanted to hide behind a lie and a decision he hadn’t believed was hers – then he wanted to get dressed and out into public space before he could address the sadness he felt in private. Two can play at the game, he had thought.

And he had been sad in that moment: for her and because of her and around her.

“Yeah, I did,” Annabeth had snapped, and he felt a burn under his skin at her tone, like he was to blame.

Percy had given her a resigned look, and he could see that she knew. Annabeth knew that her mocha-latte-RA-rant was bullshit, that Percy could see through it: the reason she was here, above all else, was to set a line between the two of them and that line’s name is Luke.

“Well, I’m glad you’ll have more time,” Percy had said softly, his anger dissipated.

He had walked into his bathroom, brushed his teeth, and dumped the coffee down the sink. By the time he was ready for class, Annabeth had been talking to a sleepy Jason and it was never brought up again.

“I’m not ignoring you,” he half-lies to her now, staring at the TV. If he looks down, he’s afraid that she’ll see his lie. “Just been busy.”

Percy has and has not been ignoring her. In evading her texts or calls, he had excuses that he hadn’t used before: swim practice, grocery shopping, coursework. Annabeth had only sent a sad face and plant emojis in response, but she hadn’t mentioned that he still responded to their group chat without fail.

“Guess so,” Annabeth reaches up and pokes his chin. His fingers twitch on the back of the couch, and her feet wiggle on the couch cushion. “We should be studying for midterms right now.”

“Shh,” Percy puts his hand on her mouth, ignoring her logic. Annabeth giggles beneath his hand and swats it away. “Midterms aren’t for another three weeks, shut your mouth.”

“You just wanna watch Netflix and be lazy today, then?”

“Hell yeah,” he pinches her nose because he simply – he simply cannot help himself. Percy figures he’d pinch any of his friend’s nose, too, if they ever lounged on the couch like this with him. And, yeah, now that he thinks about it, he’s definitely pinched and poked at Grover when they’d spend their Saturdays watching cartoons on the couch. So he pinches her nose again, grinning when she thrashes against him. “Be lazy with me.”

“I’ll be lazy with you,” she finally relents, laughing and shoving his face with the palm of her hand. Percy can’t stop grinning; she’s so easy to be around and they have the whole afternoon to just be. “But you have to feed me lunch and let me lay on you.”

“I’ll throw in some popcorn, too, if you stop talking over Sir Attenborough,” he promises her.

Annabeth huffs indignantly and turns on her side, her hands tucked under her cheek as she finds comfort on his legs. Percy studies the back of her head, feeling his face melt from a grin to something softer, something private, something he knows is wrong. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he keeps one on the back of the couch and settles the other one next to his leg, fingers moving against his will.

She shifts closer still, her shoulders relaxing and legs curled on the couch beside them. Annabeth peeks back to look up at him and she smiles. Warm. “Sir Attenborough would want me to be comfortable.”

“Shut up,” he laughs, pushing her head back towards the TV. Percy shoves the thought of her closeness down, down, down. Annabeth wants to spend the day with a friend. She wants comfort, not closeness. Planet Earth and peanut butter sandwiches and ease and popcorn. Percy makes an active choice to give it to her, turning up the volume.

(She leaves late in the afternoon – a wave and a small smile – and he stares at the Netflix queue wondering how long he can lie to himself until Jason comes home.)

>Piper (1125): come over tonight

>Reyna (1126): who are u talking to?

>Percy (1127): jason?

>Nico (1127): Jason prob

>Frank (1127): Jason Grace

>Piper (1128): you’re all uninvited

>Annabeth (1129): you’re all invited except Jason

>Jason (1130): what the fcuk

>Leo (1130): “fcuk”

>Hazel (1131): jason what does “fcuk” stand for? is it new slang??

>Jason (1132): fcuk off levesque!!

>Percy (1132): don’t worry hazel i just hit jason for you

>Hazel (1133): my hero

“Wanna grab breakfast after class?” She asks him, setting her laptop on their table, their professor nowhere in sight as usual.

“At, like, a diner?” Percy questions. Hm, he thinks. His savings from summers as a lifeguard is dwindling a little faster than he’d like.

Annabeth shrugs, and smiles. Her hair is a poofy mess, the outside humidity of October first seeping into her curls, and her college sweatshirt is too big, yet again.

“What if you come over to mine and I can make pancakes instead?” He suggests, thinking that he has all of the ingredients at home. Plus. Plus – and this is totally unrelated – he misses his mom and her cooking. Percy is pretty sure he can make her pancake recipe in his sleep.

Annabeth pauses in putting her things down, her hesitation noticed. “Sure,” she starts. “Jason gonna be there?”

“Jason and Piper will probably be there,” Percy shrugs. Piper is always around, it seems. It’s not a problem, but the tension between his roommate and Piper can be stifling. Percy can only keep his sarcasm to himself for so long before Jason combusts with embarrassment and Piper wiggles her fingers in goodbye.

Annabeth rolls her eyes and sits down. “Those two,” she shakes her head before taking out her phone. “Can’t seem to escape them.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” he shrugs. It’s sorta funny. Like, watching two people dance around each other rather than the weird dance Percy can’t stop himself from dancing. Oh my god, he thinks, am I that fucking Robyn song?

“I was kinda hoping it’d just be us, honestly,” Annabeth tells him and he can’t help but grin because, yeah, he was kinda hoping for the same thing. He tells himself it’s because they’re good friends and that he is not dancing on his own. “Should we text everyone else?”

“You know how much Nico loves breakfast food,” Percy reminds her. His brain and heart are not, like, totally in sync right now, but he knows better than to deny Nico a good breakfast.

“So fucking much,” Annabeth nods, a melancholic smile on her face. He wonders why she’s sad.

>Annabeth (0856): pancakes at percy and jason’s at 11

>Jason (0857): uh sure i guess

>Frank (0857): can i bring bread and make french toast

>Percy (0857): no <3

>Nico (0859): I… will be there.

(Reyna takes a video of their breakfast spread, zooming in on Nico’s elated face, and posts it to her Instagram story, tagging everyone. Jason groans and adds it to his own story, pretending like he’s not smitten with their friend group.)

It is October fourth and she runs her fingers through his hair as she passes him in class and he begins to deny his heart, telling himself that the burning under his ribs is simple infatuation.

He catches him in the line at Starbucks, off-campus but close to the pool.

“Hey, man,” Percy tries, standing slightly behind him, just in his periphery. His hair is damp, a constellation of water drops on his grey sweatshirt. It’s late in the afternoon, a Monday evening practice turned into a fucking rage-train-swim-kill session by Coach Hedge. Percy is trying not to think about his shoulders; he’s pretty sure that he’ll have to work just as hard in morning workouts. Whatever. It’s not like he needs to use his arms to live his life.

Luke lazily turns around, his hands deep in his jeans pockets. His face remains impassive, a look of boredom apparent. “Hey.”

“It’s Percy,” he gives him the benefit of the doubt. There’s a lot of new people at college, and it has been some time since they met. “Annabeth’s friend.”

“I know,” Luke nods, his face smooth, and Percy wants to ask how he got the scar on his eyebrow. He stops himself from asking. Annabeth’s boyfriend looks put-together and unbothered, as if he has had this conversation with Percy a thousand times. Luke turns back towards the cashier, and Percy is dismissed before he’s barely addressed.

“Single shot, over ice,” Luke leans leans his elbows on the counter, and his face is lit up, friendly and warm and – if Percy looks closely – knowing . “Think you can handle that, Kelli?”

The blonde puts her own elbows on the counter, and Percy would feel intrusive if he wasn’t, you know, in the middle of a Starbucks on a Monday afternoon right next to a busy college campus. Kelli smirks, “Are you flirting with me, Luke Castellan?”

“Maybe,” Luke straightens, back straight. He pulls out his wallet, throws a five in the tip jar. “Gotta have some deniability, though.”

“Spoken like a true politician,” Kelli croons, flashing another smile and marking a plastic cup. “Come and see me tomorrow?”

“I’ll think about it,” Luke grins back, and Percy feels like this might be a real scenario, an actual situation that Luke has been in a thousand times before. A flirting barista, a busy Starbucks, deniability. Annabeth’s boyfriend turns to Percy, and his face is pleased. “Get my friend a shot, too.”

“This one?” Kelli shrugs, looks Percy up and down, and lifts another cup. “Sure.”

Percy is in shock. It was effortless, he sees, for Luke to switch between disdain and amusement. He feels uneasy, and he doesn't want to know why. The line for drinks is long, and Percy stands against the espresso bean decor and stares at the side of Luke’s face. Not once does Luke turn to address him, nor does Percy attempt to say thank you.

There’s a piece of a puzzle he doesn’t want to solve sitting right in fucking front of him, but Percy is tired and confused and he still hears the last tap, tap, tap that Annabeth had drummed against their shared table in class reverberating in his head.

This is who Luke is, Percy realizes. A puzzle piece in hand, and he can already see the full picture.

This is not who Percy is, so he turns on the spot, blocking out the grinding sound of espresso beans and the steaming of milk and the high-pitched voice of the cashier. Percy can feel Luke’s eyes on his as he weaves through the crowd.

(He leaves Starbucks and never returns, a piece of deniability and a final tap, tap, tap left behind, and he knows he will keep Luke’s secret.)

Annabeth Facetimes him on her way home from her calculus class.

“I want to show you something,” she laughs breathlessly, the wind whipping her hair around her face. It’s cold outside, he knows, and her cheeks are pink, pink, pink. Percy is still huddled in his bed; Friday mornings are his sleep-in days. Even so, he answered when he saw her contact photo on his ringing phone.

“Whatisit?” He mumbles, trying to keep his eyes open, setting his phone against his pillow. “Better be good, Beth.”

There’s a gust of wind, her hair hitting her face. She sputters a strand out of her mouth and he laughs, voice low and tired. “I cannot deal with how sleepy you are, Percy Jackson,” she changes the subject, fond. “Were you up late playing the Switch again?”

“No,” he blinks his eyes open.

“You liar,” she laughs, quick and real. So bright, he thinks. The sky is grey behind her, and it only serves to highlight who she is, how she laughs, the dark flecks in her eyes. “Lemme figure out how to – how the fuck am I supposed to flip the camera?”

“There’s a camera button,” Percy offers sarcastically, yawning and stretching his arms. “It looks like a camera.”

Annabeth’s concentration face turns into an unamused face. “You’re grouchy when you first wake up.”

“A different breed of goblin,” Percy settles closer into his pillow. He’s half-awake, his eyes heavy and heart heavy and deniability weighing over his head.

Annabeth laughs, and he knows that she remembers his goblin insult from almost two months prior. “Get ready to be cheered up, Seaweed brain.”

She flips the camera setting on her phone, and Percy watches as she crosses the cobblestones of the quad. It’s early, and there are few people milling about. Near the center, though, is a woman in a vest and as Annabeth walks closer, Percy sees a dog.

Holy shit, he wakes up. A dog, he lets out a quick laugh. There’s a fucking dog on campus, and Annabeth is running her hands through its thick, white fur and Percy is under four blankets. He hears her talk to the owner, and the camera is only pointed at the dog’s vest.

“Midterms are coming up,” the owner explains. “So I bring Luna around to help ease some anxiety for students. She loves to cuddle.”

“Oooh,” Annabeth bends down to pet the dog, letting Luna nuzzle into her.

“Lemme see,” Percy pleads. “I wanna see Luna. Beth. Annabeth Chase. Lemme see the dog.”

Annabeth laughs and uses her phone to show him the white, fluffy dog. Luna’s tongue lolls out of her mouth. Percy grins. He can’t help it. He fucking loves dogs.

“I fucking love dogs,” Percy reminds her.

“I know you do,” Annabeth says softly, and he wishes he were seeing her face and not Luna’s. Like she read his mind, she changes the perspective on her phone. “Feeling less grouchy?”

“Yeah,” he smiles and she matches it, gentle and genuine and he’s in so much trouble, probably. It’s a crush, he reminds himself. A stupid crush that’ll pass. “You cured me.”

Annabeth shrugs, and her smile is a new one. “I just know you, that’s all.”

Percy smiles, not trusting his own voice. Do you know me? He wants to ask her, wants to see if she really knows him. Do you know what I know? Do you know what I’m feeling?

(If Annabeth knew him, he reminds himself as deniability and infatuation sit deep in his chest, she wouldn’t be smiling at him.)

>Percy (1656): lets hang ouuuuut

>Beth (1934): i’m sorry I was with Luke!!!!

>Percy (1935): nah don’t worry about it. Frank and Leo came over

>Beth (1936): the fomo is real

>Percy (1937): come over next time??

>Beth (1938): luke too?

Fucking fuck in fucking hell. He runs a hand through his hair.

>Percy (1939): ya lol

>Beth (1942): okie :-)

“Reyna’s birthday is coming up,” Jason tells him, but he is distracted.

Annabeth swears loudly from her kitchen, and Piper stops her story and rolls her eyes.

“Nobody say anything,” Annabeth threatens, and Hazel has to close her eyes and take a deep breath. “Everything is fine.”

“Jesus Christ,” Leo whistles under his breath, raising his eyebrows. “It’s just pasta, isn’t it?”

“You don’t understand,” Piper whispers, eyes flickering to the kitchen’s entryway. “She can’t even make instant ramen.”

“Don’t be mean,” Frank kicks Piper’s foot and frowns. “She’s doing her best.”

Percy is saddened to realize that Frank might be telling the truth. They were supposed to be ordering take-out, some horror flick queued on Leo’s laptop, before Percy began this mess.

“I miss my mom’s cooking,” Percy had said from the end of the couch, Annabeth’s feet in his lap while her head on the opposite armrest. Her eyes were closed, and he remembers that she went on a run earlier in the evening, her wet hair tied into a bun. She hadn’t asked him to join, and he tells himself that he was at afternoon practice anyway, that he wouldn’t have been able to go anyway.

“Is your mom a good cook?” Frank had looked up from the list of take-out menus.

“The best,” he had responded dreamily.

“I’m the best cook I know,” Leo had asserted, lifting Annabeth’s legs to sit between her and Percy. Annabeth put her legs across his lap once he was comfortable, her toes wiggling on Percy’s lap. He had pinched one and she giggled. “I could outcook any of you, probably.”

Piper had chuckled from her position on the floor, a laugh very specific to her usual nonsense.

“What’s so funny?” Leo had used his foot to nudge her.

“You know who’s a bad cook?” Piper had grinned, and Percy had not liked the mischief in her face. “Annabeth.”

“You know what,” Annabeth had frowned. She did not elaborate.

“You’re the worst cook I’ve ever met,” Hazel had deadpanned.

“You burnt your coffee this morning.” Piper had pointed out.

“We own a Keurig,” Hazel had reminded everyone.

A beat of silence.

Annabeth’s limbs flailed across Percy and Leo, making them quite uncomfortable before she finally rose from the couch. “Don’t be,” she kicked Hazel and Piper, “mean.”

“Truth hurts, Lizzo,” Piper had grabbed Annabeth’s ankle, who subsequently tried to shake the other girl off. “Prove us wrong, then.”

Annabeth’s shaking leg stilled, Piper grinning up from the floor triumphantly, and take-out menus forgotten. Annabeth glowered down at her roommates, face pink and determined. Percy had watched the scene with a vested interest. It is not every day that Annabeth falls into Piper’s goading.

“You know what,” Annabeth had said quietly, and their friends watched in mild fear, “I think I will.”

Which is exactly how Percy finds himself flinching from the sounds coming from the kitchen, his stomach growling, their plans for a low-key movie night overtaken by a challenge. It’s stupid, childish, loud, but well, he supposes, aren’t most of their gatherings?

“Are you okay?” Jason calls out to Annabeth, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Piper.

Percy isn’t sure when that happened, exactly, but the previous Monday Percy had woken at four AM to find Piper raiding his freezer. They made alarmed eye contact for five seconds before he had shrugged and removed the ice cream and spoon from her hands.

“That was mine,” she had frowned.

“Jason was mine,” he had made a kissy noise at her. “Night night.”

“I’m fine,” Annabeth answers back to Jason, and Percy can’t take it anymore. He stands.

“Percy, please,” Hazel whines. “Just convince her to buy us pizza. She’s rich.”

“My dad is rich, Hazel!” Annabeth groans loudly, the sound of a slamming cabinet, and Percy rolls his eyes. “Not me .”

“Spoken like a rich girl,” Piper yells back, giving Percy the middle finger for intervening.

“Don’t even get me started on you, McLean,” Percy shakes his head, walking over his friends starving bodies towards the kitchen. “You’re rich as fuck.”

Piper opens her mouth to say something before she closes it, eyes narrowed.

“You were gonna say something about it not being your money, weren’t you?” Reyna grins, and Percy leaves Piper to that conversation, walking into the kitchen.

Annabeth is standing over the stove, pot of boiling water sending steam into her face. She glances at him nervously before her face hardens.

“Are you here to mock me, too?” She stirs her pasta and frowns at him. Her face is red with indignation and embarrassment and he holds his hand out.

“Give me the spoon,” he says seriously, fighting a grin.

Annabeth holds it closer to her, glaring.

“Beth,” his voice changes – it is softer, and it is only infatuation – and she relaxes, handing over the spoon. “Thank you.”

Percy inspects what she’s done so far. There are jars of pre-made tomato sauce and two boxes of different types of pasta on the counter. So far, she has chopped an onion unevenly, crushed garlic, and put pasta into boiling water. Not bad, he thinks, but, uh, not great.

“Don’t make fun of me,” she says, voice small, and Percy wants to laugh, but not at her. He could never laugh at her, not when she looks so vulnerable. “We didn’t have two boxes of the same pasta.”

“That’s alright,” he turns on another burner, setting a pot down and grabbing olive oil. “Wanna do it together?”

Annabeth nods and they do. Their friends have started watching reruns of the Office in the living room, distracted.

He guides her in sauteing, adding spices, mixing a little pasta water into the sauce. She watches intently, her eyes never leaving his movements. He moves around her in the small kitchen, his hand pressed to her waist when he has to reach around her for chili flakes. Percy tells himself that Annabeth isn’t leaning back into his hand, that space and time and steam are tricking him. Percy is grabbing bowls when she speaks softly again, voice shaking a little bit.

“Who taught you how to cook?”

“My mom,” and Percy smiles, his heart squeezing. He makes a note to FaceTime his mother in the morning. “She taught me everything.”

“It’s not because my family is rich and we had cooks or anything,” she blurts, avoiding his gaze. “It’s – look – no one taught me. I – I would have loved to learn. They just – my dad – my mom – didn’t,” Annabeth stutters, stirring the sauce. He hears what she is trying to say.

“I’m sure you’d be good at it,” Percy smiles, and his heart squeezes. She’d be good at anything, he thinks.

“I’d want to learn, too,” she says earnestly, meeting his eyes, fierce. Annabeth is a quiet sun in October, he thinks. Subdued, a different angle on the earth, contemplative.

“Did you learn anything tonight?” Percy tries to redirect her, to help her see that she is under the New York sun now, California and her family across the continent.

She stares at him, and there’s a moment in which he thinks that, yeah, maybe this is just a simple crush, that, yeah, he’s gonna be over her any day now, and then –

“I learned that you’re my best friend, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth whispers to him, voice earnest, a small smile. “And you choose to see the best in people.”

Percy is too overwhelmed with affection and denial to speak: he pulls her into a hug, kisses her head, and feels warm, warm, warm.

(He’s fucked.)

“Hey, Percy,” Beck pulls him aside after practice, waving to Jason to walk ahead. “You alright? Connor beat you on the fly.”

Percy tries to smile, but things are piling, piling, piling. “It’s not my strongest stroke.”

“Dude, that’s, uh, not really my point.”

“I’m not following,” Percy frowns, brain fuzzy.

“You’re off,” Beck stares at him. “You need a break? I know Hedge has been on your ass about the 400.”

“Actually,” Percy clears his throat, latching onto the opportunity. “I kinda wanna go home for the weekend? See my mom.”

Beck doesn’t even rag on him, he just nods and nods. “Yeah, man, sounds good. I’ll let Hedge know.”

(Percy calls his mom and he tries not to cry and she demands he come home the second he can on Friday afternoon.)

“I saw Luke last week,” Percy can’t stop himself from saying, a shiver running down his body.

Piper and Hazel continue their mirrored movements in decorating Reyna’s birthday cake. He had come to the party earlier than what was expected, he knows, to have this conversation. Hazel had accepted his excuse to help with the decorations and threw a roll of streamers at him. Neither had brought up his anxious energy, the taping and re-taping of the streamers. Percy feels grateful for that, but standing in front of them, minutes away from the start of the party, he wishes that either – or both – had pulled him aside to ask what was wrong.

“Yeah?” Hazel peeks up to look at him, the last candle placed in the chocolate frosting. “How was it?”

Percy shrugs.

“Was he a jerk?” Piper mutters, wiping her hands on a kitchen cloth.

Percy shrugs.

Piper stops cleaning the counter and looks over to the table, where Percy sits. He’s tense, he knows, like a frozen gargoyle perched on a wooden chair, a sunshine goblin rotating through his thoughts like a mythical carousel. Piper narrows her eyes at him.

“He was a dickhead, wasn’t he?”

Percy shrugs.

Hazel puts a frosting knife in the sink and turns to Piper. “Did he just fucking shrug again?”

“I think he did,” Piper nods at her.

“What the hell,” Percy sighs. “I don’t know how to say it.”

“Well, you’re here,” Piper reminds him, gesturing to his shitty streamer job.

“Might as well talk,” Hazel suggests, licking frosting off of her pinky. “Before everyone shows up.”

Percy stares at them for a moment, and he sees that their cavalier attitude is not because they do not care. Piper and Hazel busy themselves in cleaning a barely-dirty kitchen, offering him a way out and a way to talk. His choice.

“I love you both,” he blurts out and they laugh.

“That bad, huh?” Hazel’s dark eyes are warm. “Just spit it out, Percy.”

The words rush out, out, out:

“I saw him at Starbucks, like two weeks ago? And he – he tried to buy me coffee. Well, an espresso shot, but you know what I mean. Only – the thing is, he would barely look at me. He was talking to – to the barista or cashier or whatever the fuck Starbucks calls their overworked and underpaid employees. He was. Hm. I don’t know how. She was. Um. Flirting? Like, really good customer service? I don’t. This is an assumption, of course, obviously, because I’m probably the last person to ask for flirting info – I’ve only ever been with one girl and that’s because we did it as friends – and I don’t know why I just said that, really, fuck! This is so far from my point.”

Hazel and Piper stare at him, faces blank.

He continues because he’s already begun and he doesn’t know how to stop and their friends will be here any minute: “Luke said something about deniability and she laughed like it was an inside joke and he tried to buy me an espresso shot only… I don’t like straight espresso? He’d know that, too, probably, if he had just spoken with me, but he didn't want to. Speak to me. Just her, I think. Tammi – no, Kelli. Kelli the overworked barista with deniability and the five dollar tip.”

Hazel turns to Piper. “Translate.”

“Luke ignored Percy to flirt with the barista and then he tried to buy his silence with a shot of shitty Starbucks espresso.”

“Over ice,” Percy adds, because it’s important.

“Even worse,” Hazel nods seriously.

They stare at each other, a triad of deniability and secrets and one sunshine goblin on their minds.

“Beth said I am her best friend,” his eyes are stinging.

“Oh, Percy,” Piper shakes her head, wringing her hands.

“This is so fucked,” Hazel whispers.

“Fuck deniability,” Percy summarizes.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Piper looks dazed.

“SAT Prep words,” Hazel shudders.

“What should I do?” Percy asks them.

“What can you do?” Piper sighs, sharing a look with Hazel.

“What?” His heart is beating through his chest like a racehorse, and he wonders what it’d be like to go for a swim right now, if he’d be able to shake Annabeth’s face out of his head. How many laps? Is his infatuation with her a sprint or an endurance race? How many laps?

Hazel shrugs, and he wants to sink into the kitchen floor.

“Annabeth already kinda knows,” Piper confesses, her face sad, sad, sad. “She’s had suspicions for a while now. But don’t tell her, please. They’re trying to work through it.”

“Percy,” Hazel looks at him, face serious. “Don’t make it any worse for her.”

The doorbell rings and his heart breaks a little bit for Annabeth and because of Annabeth and around Annabeth.

He is so confused and a best friend and a liar, apparently. He’s nervous and nauseous and he looks at Reyna’s birthday cake and he feels undeserving of it all.

Hazel answers the door and–

(Percy leaves after wishing Reyna a happy birthday, passing Luke and Annabeth in the hallway, stumbling through an excuse about coffee and streamers and gargoyles and SAT words.)

>Percy (2344): hey g-man

>Grover (2344): what’s wrong

>Grover (2344): you only call me g-man when something is wrong

>Grover (2344): are u okay?? Should i call?

>Percy (2345): everything is good just missing ya, bud

>Percy (2345): can you have more than one best friend? Is it normal to feel so much?

Grover is calling…

Percy tells his mother that he feels better after speaking with Grover. He is better balanced, a rush of emotions and confusion slightly slowed with Grover’s, “Your heart is big enough for two best friends, Percy.”

“I don’t want you to feel replaced,” Percy’s throat was closing, the midnight coolness seeping in through his open window. He should have been asleep, but he had left Annabeth’s apartment with a hole in his heart, a continuous flow of affection filling at the top while emptying out of the bottom.

“Um,” Grover had laughed through the phone, and Percy fought back a smile. “You could never replace me, probably. Definitely. No, I’ve decided that you could never. I was there during your emo skater phase. God, the fucking attitude. There’s no take-backs, sorry.”

Percy had laughed so loud that Jason hit his bedroom wall to quiet him down. Percy sat down at his desk and started capping and uncapping a ballpoint pen.

“It’s Annabeth,” he had finally said.

“I figured,” Grover replied, voice even. Then, unevenly: “It’s Annabeth.”

“Yeah,” Percy’s voice was low, resigned and fond and confused.

“Sunshine goblin with a hothead boyfriend?”

“I can’t believe I told you that.”

“Like I wouldn’t already know, Percy. We are of the same mind,” Grover had said philosophically, slowly. “We’re best friends.”

“Yeah,” Percy capped the pen one last time and closed his bedroom window. He hadn’t wanted to freeze, and Grover had filled the leaking part of his heart. “We’re best friends.”

Percy tells his mother about this conversation, his hands running through his sister’s soft curls, the baby napping in his arms. Sally sits beside him, her brown hair thrown across her shoulder, her face covered with laugh lines and understanding.

His mother smiles differently now, amused. “You’re a sweet boy, Percy. Always have been.”

His eyes water, because it’s similar to what Annabeth had said, similar to the sentiment Grover gave him, and Percy feels a bit like a fraud. He’s not sweet. He mocks his friends and he’s got a competitive streak and he’s sarcastic and impulsive and struggling in English Lit and his moods, god. He doesn’t know if he can control his own emotions, sometimes, like an overflowing pool, water lapping over the edges and seeping, seeping, seeping only to return into the pool again. Percy doesn’t feel sweet; he feels fermented and acidic and confused.

He presses a kiss to his sister’s forehead and snuggles her closer, not trusting his tightening throat to speak. His mother is a patient woman. Finally, he says, “I’m waiting for my friends to just. I don’t know. I don’t know. Stop texting back? Like, they will see me and… not like me anymore.”

Sally reaches forward to squeeze his forearm and Percy is so, so, so close to crying that he feels more of a baby than his sister.

College, he thinks, is thinking you know who you are and not recognizing yourself in the mirror. Who is the dark-haired person that looks back at him? When did he gain friends that weren’t born out of bullying and failing grades and quirks? When did his heart begin to feel so full? And – this question haunts him the most, makes him touch his own face to ensure he’s real – when will it all come crashing down?

“I am sorry that you learned to feel those things, Percy. I wish you didn’t have to,” his mother squeezes his forearm again. They think of the same things: cigarette smoke, poker chips, weeks and months and milestones spent away from his mother for his own safety. “But you can’t control how people perceive you.”

“I hate being perceived,” Percy mumbles and his mother laughs and he knows that he will be okay, that his brooding is normal.

He’s eighteen, a mess of emotions and infatuation and friendships and essays and quizzes and sunshine and orange leaves and the threat of winter looming, looming, looming in the shadows. Fuck, he thinks. He can’t keep denying his emotions.

“I’ll send you back with a care package,” she kisses his forehead and reaches for his sister. Percy shakes his head and holds his sister closer. He misses his family and the lack of confusion he feels in their love. Sally’s face softens and she nods. “Paul should be home soon. He misses you.”

(Percy returns to campus with questions answered, a tupperware full of cookies, and leaking heart temporarily fixed.)

>Reyna (1715): been thinking about sally jackson’s cookie recipe

>Frank (1721): percy can ur mom come to college w us?

>Annabeth (1724): wait i was with luke...what cookies??? I want some

>Piper (1728): u snooze u lose

He’s swimming and moving and breathing and it hits him.

Deniability.

It’s a puzzle piece in his own picture.

(Percy swims and breathes and his chest hurts and he beats Connor’s 400 time and he’s not confused.)

It is Friday night, long after the set sun, October moon high in the sky. He has been back on campus for days, his phone silenced and on his desk as he studies for midterms. He knows, too, that Jason is giving him space. He’s grateful that midterms have kept the rest of their friends busy so that he can sort through his own bullshit.

Percy wonders how much longer he can keep it to himself.

Annabeth is calling....

“Hello?” He answers, and he knows it’s gonna hurt. Probably. Most likely.

“Are you home?” She asks quickly, and Percy closes his eyes against the darkness of his room.

“Yeah,” his voice is thick with his tiredness.

He had spent the entire night studying for midterms with Hazel and Frank. Friday nights are usually the night when they all hang out, but Annabeth had a date, and Reyna had made plans with a study group. It’s natural, Percy supposes, for a big group to break off to tend to their own needs. As long as they all come back together, Percy hopes, it’s fine.

“I’m coming over, is that okay?” Annabeth’s voice is small and Percy opens his eyes again. She does not ask to come over. Like, ever. Usually, Percy thinks he only knows Annabeth is in his apartment when she asks him to make food or when she’s dragging him by his heels to get up for class.

“Yeah, Beth,” he hates the way his infatuation drives him. “Wanna stay on the phone until you’re here?”

“I’m already here,” she laughs through the phone, and he hears the tears in her voice. “I don’t wanna punch in your code in case your stupid fucking RA catches me.”

“I’m coming down,” he tells her, throwing on a sweatshirt and grabbing his keys and rushing out of the door. He takes the stairs two at a time, disregarding the elevator. He throws a middle finger towards the RA apartment before he opens the front door.

Annabeth is sitting on the steps, her back to him. She’s wearing a Marvel sweatshirt that Percy recognizes as Piper’s, her hair up in a ponytail. Her phone sits beside her on the concrete, its screen lighting up with each new notification.

“Hey,” Percy hangs up their call and shoves his phone into his sweatshirt pocket.

At first, he thinks that she is ignoring him, that he misunderstood their phone conversation, because she is sitting on the ground with her face in her hands, her shoulders rising and falling with deep breaths. He sets a hand on her shoulder and waits.

Annabeth looks up at him, face set and eyes red and he sees that she knows.

“Piper told me,” she gets out, voice mangled and ashamed. “And you probably think I’m a fucking idiot.”

“I could never think that,” he sits beside her.

“You could and you do,” Annabeth says forcefully, and he feels his blood start to warm at the thought of her telling him what he thinks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not my relationship,” he reminds her, the coolness of the concrete slab offering no relief for the heat that pulses through his veins.

“That didn’t stop you from telling Hazel and Piper,” she spits out, face pale and eyes red and a set sun.

“I didn’t know what to make of it,” he tells her. “It looked like nothing but…”

“But what?”

“But it felt like something. And I couldn’t just tell you that.”

“You should have,” Annabeth hisses and that’s it for him.

“You already knew,” Percy snaps. “You said it yourself. He doesn’t want you here but you are and there’s a fucking barista named Tammi.”

“It’s Kelli,” she argues, eyes narrowed and voice harsh.

“Is that the point you want to make?” Percy stares at her.

Annabeth stands, and he wonders why she came all the way to his building just to argue. Her hands are shaking and her eyes are watering and he feels a thousand times worse but at least he isn’t confused anymore.

“I love him, Percy,” Annabeth says pointedly and he hears it. A cracking in his chest and a break in her face as she begins to cry in earnest. “It’s not what it looks like, though.”

“It’s not?”

“I love him, and you’re my best friend.” She answers a question he didn’t ask.

“Why are you saying that? Why are you here?” His own voice sounds strangled, looking up at her from the cold steps.

“Because,” she exhales shakily. “I expected more from you.”

He stands because she’s confused and he is not.

“You expected more from me?” He laughs and it’s not funny. “Not your boyfriend of four years? You expected more from your friend of barely two months?”

“My best friend,” Annabeth’s voice raises and she’s not making any sense.

“Do you hear yourself, Beth?” She turns away and he wants to grab her arm, make her face him, but he’s not that person. “You have more expectations from me than Luke.”

“I love him,” she repeats, voice quieter and embarrassed but, Christ, she’s determined, too.

“I know you do,” he says softly, because anyone can see it. She’s bright and warm and a riot to be around, but a piece of her heart will always belong to Luke. “What do you expect from me right now?” Percy hates that he asks, hates that he’s gonna do whatever she wants.

“A friend,” her shoulders slump and her face is vulnerable and his heart hurts. “My best friend. And a place to sleep.”

It shouldn’t feel like a weapon and a blessing, that title, but it does and it cuts sharper than the autumn breeze.

“Then believe me when I say you’re not an idiot,” he grabs her hand. “And come upstairs.”

Annabeth follows him inside, and they both give the finger to the RA apartment on their way upstairs.

“Get in,” he gestures to his bed. She removes her hoodie and settles under his mess of blankets.

“Are you sleeping here?” She looks up at him and she’s so tired. Fucking hell, he thinks. Annabeth is tired and confused and he wonders if there’s a Sally Jackson or Grover out there for her. It strikes him that there’s not, that he really is her best friend.

“Nah,” Percy shakes his head.

It’d be too much, too soon. He’s only just unwoven his feelings. The thought of sleeping side-by-side, two best friends, feels like a slap across the face.

"Tap, tap, tap," she whispers, apologetic and an olive branch and he wants to tell her, suddenly. But her face is sad and she needs a friend.

"Tap, tap, tap," he whispers back, willing his voice to remain steady, fighting his unpredictable nature. He needs a friend, too.

Annabeth nods and he waves a hand goodnight before he closes the door.

He doesn’t knock when he enters Jason’s room. His roommate is sleeping on his stomach, drooling disgustingly but Percy smiles anyway.

“Wake up,” he whispers, shoving his arm.

“Huh?” Jason swats him away.

“I have to tell you something,” Percy presses. “Annabeth is here, by the way, so stay quiet.”

“Then fucking say it and leave me alone,” Jason swats at the air again.

“I’m in love with Annabeth,” Percy tells him, because he’s no longer confused and he’s tired of deniability.

“I know, dude,” Jason rolls over, patting the side of the bed that doesn’t have any drool on the pillow. Percy lays down and closes his eyes. “I’m not a complete brickhead.”

(The confusion, the leaky heart, the fermenting sweetness, Percy thinks, well, that’s deniability, baby. And he’s done with that.)

Chapter 3: don't give a fuck

Summary:

Everyone he knows has a major and the most he’s figured out is that he’s in love with a girl who doesn’t love him back and Piper can outdrink him and Jason is a granola bar.

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing, okay? Percy doesn’t give a fuck.

Percy finds his alone time the best, especially since campus has turned into a spectacular view of autumn. There are reds and oranges and yellows around him and he’s not feeling green.

It is what it is, he thinks. There’s a grey sky and it doesn’t make him sad. He walks and walks and walks. There are probably things he should be doing, like calling Grover or reviewing Hazel’s notes from English Lit, but honestly? He doesn’t care. It’ll only be sweater weather for a little while longer, the air nipping at his face and biting at his ears. He will miss this, he thinks. The way the wind and the sky and the sun shift during autumn.

Winter will bring its own harsh air, a coldness that he will feel in his bones, blinding morning sun and sheets of white snow on the ground. Wonderful and untouched, he had thought as a child. Now, Percy thinks that the heavy snowdrifts and lack of sound in winter is a deeper reflection. Winter brings changed plans. Percy walks around a lesser known part of campus, older buildings and older stories. He walks and walks and walks.

Autumn in New York needs its own love letter, Percy thinks. The sun hangs in the sky in spite of the clouds. It’ll leave soon, the sun, and Percy will miss it dearly. There’s a clarity to summer he is mourning, and a foreboding of winter he is trying to ignore. There’s a resignation about this season, he thinks. Acknowledgement and acceptance and preparation. The worst is coming, yeah, but he’s not sad about it.

It’s the way things are, he knows. Leaves fall and love isn’t returned. He’s trying to fight the bitterness of it all.

Percy walks and walks and walks until the sun is set.

(Autumn isn’t preparing for winter. Autumn is preparing for spring.)

Midterms are over and he almost feels like he can breathe and maybe move again and then Coach Gleeson Hedge pulls him into his office.

“You can swim,” Hedge opens a reusable bag, producing baby carrots. He opens a lunchbox and pulls out a container of hummus.

“Yes, sir,” Percy agrees.

“Pretty fast,” the coach kicks his hairy legs up onto his desk, leaning back and crunching on a carrot. There’s a baseball bat flat across his desk. Typical swim coach.

He raises a dark eyebrow, as if Percy is gonna argue with him. Percy won’t. He’s secretly kinda maybe definitely afraid of his swim coach. And this is just the assistant coach, Percy has to remind himself. Occasionally, he will see the shadow of the head coach from the stands, a bulky man with a bulky beard that looks a bit like a horse. His name is Chiron, but Percy isn’t entirely sure if that’s, like, his actual name or not.

“Yes, sir,” Percy is afraid to disagree.

“Nice scholarship you got there, too,” Hedge narrows his eyes at a carrot, inspecting it critically, tufts of hair sticking up from his head like a pair of horns.

“Yeah,” Percy grins. It is.

Coach Hedge turns his critical eye to Percy and he might actually start sweating. Swimming is nice, Percy thinks. You can sweat and bust your ass but you’re covered in water, anyway. Standing in a concrete-walled office, the heavy smell of chlorine in the air, and Hedge’s accusatory eye on him, well – he’s sweating. And, hm. Now that he looks closely… Hedge kinda looks like a goat.

“It’s ‘yes, sir,’ Jackson,” he snaps.

“Yes, sir,” Percy parrots, lips twitching. Goat Man.

“Don’t lose it, kid,” Hedge shoves a carrot into his hummus dip like a spear. “Your scholarship or your head. I’ll have to knock some sense into you, and trust me, you sure as shit won’t like it.”

“No, sir,” Percy is glad that Hedge is distracted by chomping on his snack. Fucking Goat Man and his carrots and hummus! He can’t wait to tell Jason.

“Get your ass outta here, you’re starting to smell,” Hedge talks around a full mouth, waving him away with a handful of baby carrots.

Percy doesn't need to be told twice. He all but runs into the locker room, his wet hair flopping onto his forehead. He finds Jason leaving the shower area, a suspicious scowl on his face.

“Goddamn Stolls,” Jason frowns. “What’s the point of a locker room if the locks are useless?”

“Goat Man,” Percy finally wheezes out, putting his hands on his jammers to breathe. “Hedge.”

Jason stares, unimpressed.

“He – oh, fuck,” Percy laughs, bending forward to lean more onto his hands. “He looks like a goat. His legs. Hummus. Goat Man. Coach Hedge. He’s – did you hear me? Jason, Goat Man. ”

“JACKSON!”

Holyfuckingshit. Percy stands straight immediately, laughter dying in his throat, eyes wide. The entire locker room stills, the only sound the distant running of showers. Jason smirks, triumphant for no good reason and Percy might drown today à la Goat Man. No no no no no. It’s not even his best joke.

“Forgot to tell you,” Hedge calls from the locker room doorway. There’s a crunching sound and Percy flinches – just a little. “Get a tutor for your history class. Fucking Ancient History, taking away my championship title? Jackson, I swear to god if you don’t pass this semester, you’ll snap like a fucking carrot…” his voice trails off as the door closes, Coach Hedge presumably returning to his baseball bat and snack.

“Dude,” Beck finally says from Percy’s right. “Did you just – did you say ‘Goat Man’?”

“Like a – a satyr? From ancient Greece?” Travis Stoll furrows his eyebrows and Percy thinks that the wallet in Travis’ hand looks familiar.

“I wouldn’t know,” Percy shrugs, and Jason rolls his eyes. “Pretty sure I’m failing that class.”

“Goat Man,” Travis’ eyes glaze over, looking towards the locker room door.

“Championship title,” Beck’s eyes glaze over, looking towards Percy.

“My goddamn wallet,” Jason’s eyes glaze over, looking towards Travis.

(Jason is out twenty bucks, there’s a betting pool for how long they can hide Coach’s nickname from him, and Percy wonders when he’ll ever use ancient history in the real world.)

>Percy (1756): what are the odds that we have a history affogato in this gc?

>Nico (1757): you make me hate being italian

>Hazel (1757): had to google that one!!!

>Leo (1757): i’m laughing so fucking hard right now hahahahahhhhhh

>Reyna (1758): history aficionado, perhaps?

>Frank (1758): well we know ur not an english aficionado percy….

>Jason (1758): HAHAHA. Sorry buddy it’s hilarious

>Piper (1759): you have such bad espresso experiences…. Try tea.

>Percy (1800): i hate it here

>Annabeth (1934): i always miss everything what the fuck!!!!!!

“Hey,” Annabeth sidles up to him before class, her hands holding her laptop close to her chest. She lowers herself in her seat and Percy smiles at her. Annabeth returns it, trepidation and apologies and trying. God, he thinks. Who knew a smile could express so much?

“Hey there,” Percy clears his throat and, really, did he think this was gonna be easy?

She was asleep when Percy had left his apartment the next morning. He had practice and then his history midterm and then a study group for Ecology. And he had thought about it, damn near endlessly: should he wake her before he leaves?

In the end, a gym bag on his shoulder and the sun still sleeping, he had pulled the blankets higher over her and left. Annabeth had been so tired, so confused. Percy told himself that he’d text, that he’d be the one to reach out, that he’d be her best friend.

He had not.

Percy couldn’t place why he hadn’t. There was something about arguing in the middle of the night, the October air biting and real, that he felt viscerally. He had replayed the words in his head over and over and over again. Percy wasn’t ready to move forward when the morning came. It was only when he settled into bed the next night, lemons and sea salt and laundry soap on his pillow, that he understood. He had felt unsure about her words, her point, but it was the conviction in his own feelings that made him feel better.

He is in love with her and she does not love him back and he feels left behind.

The rest, he tells himself, got lost between midterms, swim practice, and their resolve to Never Mention It Again.

And, yeah, he’s a little annoyed at how easy it was for him to drop everything and be there for her. But god, that’s what best friends are for.

Percy won’t be that guy – the one who resents and dislikes a friend for not loving him back. He fucking despises the term “friendzone” actually. He really does. There is no such thing as a friendzone. There’s friendship and no love lost there, because he’s happy to be her friend and she’s more than a Potential Lover. Plus, he knows, Annabeth doesn’t owe him anything. She’s her own person with her own choices just like he is and the thought of reducing their friendship to Return to Sender Love? Fuck that.

But she smiles at him as she pulls out her psych textbook and he can’t help but hurt and remember how peaceful she looked when she was sleeping.

“How’ve you been?” Annabeth asks him, eyes bright.

“Good,” he answers truthfully, “Relieved midterms are over.”

“Me too,” she nods, sitting back in her chair. Percy leans over and shoves her arm. “What was that for?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t love midterm week,” he grins at her and the tension is broken.

“I didn’t,” Annabeth huffs and looks away.

“Advanced calc?” Percy asks.

“Hated it,” she settles more comfortably in her chair.

“Analytical writing?”

“Dull,” she picks at her nails.

Percy pauses, voice flat. “You loved the physics one, didn’t you.”

Annabeth turns her head and grins, wide and pleased and dorky. “It was just so interesting. ”

The class settles around them, their instructor setting up for the next hour and a half. Percy swats at her arm, a mock-serious voice. “Keep that shit to yourself, Chase, it’s embarrassing.”

Annabeth stares at him, mouth agape. “Did you just call–”

“Yeah,” he cuts her off.

“And you think I won’t–”

“Nope,” he makes a popping sound with his mouth.

“Like, immediately after class–”

“Would love to see it,” Percy stares at her.

Annabeth narrows her eyes, grey and defiant and stubborn, for fuck’s sake. Percy settles deeper into his seat, crossing his arms over his chest, a smug smile on his face. Waiting for her big, bad threat. He’s stubborn, too, and equally as dumb, apparently.

“I’m gonna ruin you,” Annabeth hisses as the instructor begins to talk, her foot kicking his ankle and hand opening her laptop.

Percy leans back more, settling deeper into the space she’s created for him. A best friend. And yet: he reaches a hand across the table to rest on hers, stopping her furious typing. Her fingers are still cold from her walk to class. He squeezes them once before he lets go and Annabeth looks back at him.

“Who says you haven’t already ruined me?” Percy meets her eyes, grey on green and serious and the line drawn between them blurred for just a breath.

Their instructor dims the lights, Annabeth whips her head away, and the presentation begins. Annabeth is frozen, her fingers hovering over her keyboard for minutes before she slowly begins to type her notes.

She’ll run, he knows. Annabeth will run and he will wait and he will be her best friend when she comes back. But he has his own convictions and the blush in her face is a little salt in his wound. And, well, did he think this was gonna be easy?

(Annabeth stares straight ahead for the rest of the class, her hands fumbling to pack up her things when it ends, and a broken promise to call him later whispered before she runs.)

There’s an essay to be written.

He thought he’d work well in the cafe, the late afternoon crowd long gone, the instrumental music soothing, and the steady energy providing just enough distraction. It’s a history essay about some Roman emperor that Percy just. He just cannot care any less about it, honestly.

But he told his mother that he’d come back from his history midterm, that the weight of losing a scholarship is gonna drive him forward rather than pull him further into himself. Percy is trying to see a new version of himself, a self-recognition that he heard about in the hallways of his old high school.

College changes you, they said. But, nah, fuck that, Percy thinks. College releases you.

“Whatcha thinking about?” He hears and looks up, shocked.

The barista is staring at him from across the counter, one brown eyebrow lifted. She’s newer, he thinks, or maybe he’s just used to the morning crew. Even so, he thinks she looks familiar.

“Um, just college and stuff,” he answers.

“You’ve been here a while,” she fights a grin.

“I bought a drink,” he points to his tea.

She nods, using a cloth to wipe down an already clean counter space, an inside joke he is not part of. “Buying drinks and thinking about college and stuff.”

“Do I know you?” Percy grins. She’s too far to read her name tag, but she looks familiar.

“Just your friendly barista,” she grins back, hands up. “Don’t let me interrupt your thinking and buying.”

Percy laughs and she goes to help a customer. His phone goes off and that’s another distraction he didn’t count on.

>Leo (1754): where u at

>Percy (1755): tryin to find ancient rome

>Leo (1755): ANYWAY how do you feel about take-out and rocket league

>Percy (1756): i feel… generally good about those things

>Leo (1756): come over then, Frank is making foooood

Percy begins to pack his things. His essay is a lost cause anyway. Fuck Commodus. Well, don’t actually, like. Don’t fuck Commodus. He shakes his head and throws on his sweatshirt.

“Leaving so soon?” She asks from across the room, the sound of the milk steamer forcing her to raise her voice to him. “See you tomorrow.”

“What?” Percy laughs, but she begins to chat with the customer in front of her. Percy shakes his head again. He’s stuck in his own head lately, he knows, but doesn’t really care. He probably misheard her, anyway.

(It’s only the next day when he walks into his history class that he feels like the world’s biggest idiot. She grins when he sees her, eyebrow raised, and he could die from embarrassment right there.)

>Reyna (1129): so which of you is gonna be the narc in the group

>Jason (1130): what a great way to start a conversation with your friends

>Nico (1131): found the narc

>Reyna (1132): jason I swear to god if you ruin my freshman year

>Reyna (1132): i’ll turn feral

“Midterms are over,” Connor splashes water in Percy’s face. “When the fuck are you gonna come to a party?”

Percy wipes a hand over his face before he lifts his body out of the pool. Connor tries to climb up beside him but Percy shoves him back in the water. His teammate scowls when he surfaces again and Percy grins.

“Waiting for my invitation,” Percy lies. There have been invites, of course. He’s on the swim team, and the Stolls have thrown enough parties at their off-campus apartment to fill the pool with the alcohol they’ve consumed. There’s an entire group chat about it, actually, though Percy has those messages silenced.

“Fuck off,” Connor rips his goggles off. “You’ve been invited every time.”

“You’re so desperate for my presence,” Percy evades the topic. “I’m blushing.”

There’s no concrete reason as to why he has not gone to a party, it’s just. He’s never been to one. Sure, there were times when he and Rachel would hang out in her apartment with a bottle of fireball and spend the next morning cursing cinnamon, but a real party? Hm.

“Dude, just pre-game with your freshman friends if you’re nervous or whatever,” Connor rolls his eyes. “I’m sure you can scrounge up some shitty vodka.”

“Tempting,” Percy says drily, walking towards the bench.

“There will be girls,” Connor tries again, sitting beside him and grinning.

“Miss me with that heternormative bullshit,” Travis sidles up next to his brother, running a towel over his face.

“Our apartment is all-inclusive,” Connor nods seriously at Percy.

“That’s not what that means,” Percy laughs. “But, sure, I’ll think about it.”

(Percy does think about it. College releases you, he thinks.)

“This is your mom?” Annabeth asks, flipping through his photos. She’s laying on the grass, the last warm day of autumn. She props herself up with her elbows, her eyes squinting to see his phone screen in the bright sunshine. “She’s pretty.”

“Sally’s the best,” Percy glances over Annabeth’s shoulder. The ground is soft, and the day seems endless. “If you flip to the next one, you’ll see my step-dad and sister.”

Annabeth swipes the screen. “This one?”

He uses his hand to shield the screen from the sun, his fingers brushing against hers. “Yeah, that’s them. Paul and Estelle.”

“They look so happy,” Annabeth grins at him, face close and genuine. “I love chubby babies.”

“They’re the best,” Percy is getting a little emotional. He really does love and miss his family, even if he did just see them a couple weeks ago. “I miss her.”

Annabeth knocks her shoulder against his. “You should visit more. They’re only, like, a thirty minute train ride away.”

“You should come with next time,” Percy blurts and feels stupid but he’s already started. “My mom would love you.”

“Oh,” Annabeth’s voice falls. “No, that’s alright. I couldn’t – I wouldn’t intrude.”

“It wouldn’t be intruding,” Percy tells her honestly. “You could meet Estelle. She’s starting to walk now, and it’s so fucking funny because gravity is not her friend. She does this thing, right, where her arms lean forward and her legs can’t catch up. Obviously, she falls because grav–”

Annabeth is staring at him, a big and dopey smile on her face. Percy feels his face get hot, and it’s not the sunshine.

“Tell me about your family,” Percy tries. He hasn’t pushed her, not really. But the sun is out and his past is unlocked in her hands.

Annabeth looks away, her eyes studying the picture of Paul and Estelle on Percy’s phone. “There’s not much to say, really. My parents got divorced when I was a baby, and I was raised by my dad and step-mom.”

“Any siblings?”

“Twin brothers, actually,” and there’s a small smile on Annabeth’s face. “Half brothers.”

“Nah, fuck that term,” Percy bumps her shoulder again. “You don’t think you’re their full sister?”

Annabeth looks at him, eyebrows furrowed. “I think I am. The problem is that my step-mom…”

Percy feels like an idiot. “Gotcha.”

There’s a renewed fire in her eyes, and Percy watches as her jaw sets and her mouth moves when she speaks. “My dad let my step-mom just, like, treat me however she wanted to. Things were awful until Bobby and Matthew were born. I ran away a lot, actually,” she laughs and it’s humorless.

“Loads of times,” she laughs again and his chest hurts. “I was seven and I felt really alone. The cops kept bringing me home, and one day I just sorta realized it was a lost cause? I don’t know. I don’t know. I was seven and I started the countdown to growing up. Nine years until I could get a license. Eleven years until I could go to college. What could I do to get there on time?”

Percy watches her in broad daylight, and he sees her and he loves her. She continues:

“You ran away?” Percy studies the side of her face.

“I studied. I kept to myself. My dad worked, and my mom didn’t come around anymore, but my step-mom was always there. She was better as the boys got older. But there was always, like, that memory? Sitting in the back of a police car, my dad walking out onto the driveway to get me and my step-mom shaking her head from the front door. It’s – it’s – I was seven and I realized that I was in the way.”

“You’re not in the way,” Percy tells her now. His voice is gentle, as if there aren’t groups of people around them, the last of sunny clarity around them.

Annabeth smiles, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. She’s still not looking at him, but he sees her.

“I’m not now,” she acknowledges. “And I wasn’t when I was in high school. There were, like, weeks when I just. I didn’t go home. My dad didn’t say anything about it, either. No one did.”

Percy looks away. He knows what’s coming.

“Luke was one of my first friends. I don’t – I know you don’t understand. He was one of my first friends.”

“I know,” Percy says, and his voice is quiet for an entirely different reason now.

“No,” Annabeth turns her head to look at him and he doesn’t face her. Her voice is firm. “I don’t think you do, actually. I think you think he was wrong to date me in high school.”

Percy shrugs because, uh, yeah, he does. He was a senior and she was a freshman.

“Luke was…” He doesn’t want to hear this, but he’s trying to be a best friend. “He understands. His own parents – they were awful. Way worse than mine. But he never – I never felt like he was looking down at me or my problems at home. I would stay at his house and be able to breathe for once. We’ve been through a lot together, and I’m always gonna… have that history with him.”

“You don’t–” Percy starts, selfish and self-preserving. “You don’t have to defend him.”

“You make me feel like I do,” Annabeth is still looking at him, but he’s afraid to look back. Percy knows that she is right. What will she see in his face?

Percy picks at the grass in front of him. He wants to remind her of another discussion on the campus lawn, of a hazy conversation and a boyfriend who didn’t want her here. Percy is a lot of things, but he’s not cruel. “I’m sorry.”

“I just wish you would talk to him,” Annabeth presses. “You’d like him, I think. You’re both… similar in some ways.”

“We are not similar,” Percy says forcefully, looking over at her shocked expression. “Sorry, Beth, I’m all about some friendly discourse, but don’t even try to push it. I’ve seen enough.”

“You haven’t seen anything,” she argues, because they’re good at arguing. “You barely know him.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Percy meets her eyes. Stubborn, he knows, but so is he.

Annabeth looks away first, hurt, and he knows that this conversation is not over. The sun is out and she shines under it, and he doesn’t want to bring a shadow over her. She picks up his phone again, unlocking the screen. He watches as she flips through his photos, and as the heated moment passes, he peers over to watch.

She stops on a photo and he feels heat rise up the back of his neck, his heart pounding in his chest.

It’s a picture of him and Rachel from their senior year. Their faces are pressed together, her arm wrapped around his neck and they’re smiling toothy smiles. Her red hair takes up most of the picture – it always did, he remembers fondly – and her earrings are mismatched. He remembers taking this photo: they wanted to commemorate their break up.

It was fucking stupid, looking back at it. They are so mismatched, like her earrings, and yet, they work as friends. Just as friends. They had realized too late, firsts and memories already shared between them. She was headstrong and he was moody and god, Grover almost murdered the both of them. Now – and only now – Grover and Rachel and Percy will bring up their failed relationship and laugh.

“She’s pretty,” Annabeth finally says, quiet. “What’s her name?”

“Rachel,” Percy smiles at the photo. The only good part of high school, he thinks, was having friends like Rachel and Grover.

“Is she…?” Annabeth glances at him, raising an eyebrow, suggestive.

“Yeah, I mean,” Percy shrugs. “We were, but it didn’t work out.”

“You didn’t delete her photo,” Annabeth comments, looking closer at the picture and Percy wishes that she wouldn’t.

“She’s still a good friend,” Percy takes his phone from her. There’s something about the way her eyebrows are scrunched together, her pursed lips as she studies Rachel’s photo, that he doesn’t like. It’s almost critical, analyzing.

Annabeth frowns at him for half a moment before her face relaxes. “I’m sorry for prying.”

“You’re not prying,” he shakes his head and lies to her face. “You can ask me anything. Twenty questions. Go.”

“Where were you born?” She asks, curious, and he rolls onto his back.

“Manhattan. Where were you born?” He closes his eyes and feels her lay beside him.

“Athens.” He opens an eye to look at her face, to make sure she isn’t lying. Her face is tilted up to the sun, and her mouth is pulled into an enigmatic smile. “Favorite food?”

“Pizza, duh. What’s yours?”

“Olives. Don’t laugh. Who was your first crush?”

“Rachel,” he clears his throat. “Favorite sport?”

“Track. Who was your first kiss?”

Percy squeezes his eyes tight against the glare of the sun.

“Rachel. East or west coast? Choose wisely.”

“West coast, best coast. Fight me. Did you and Rachel do it?”

“Yeah, we did, thanks for asking like a fourteen year old. What’s your favorite color?”

“Green. No need to ask you that. Do you love her?”

“How about we stop talking?” Percy snaps, sensitive and prickly and hurt.

Her questions are bullshit, he thinks. He wonders if she heard the rest of his other answers, but that cynicism lasts for a brief moment before he thinks that, yeah, she probably filed his answers in that brain of hers. And there’s a vindictive part of him that wants to lie to her, to say that, yeah, he does love Rachel.

“I’m sorry,” her voice is strangled. “You never, like, express interest in anyone, so I got a bit carried away.”

Jesus Christ, he thinks. She’s gonna kill him in broad daylight.

He sighs exasperatedly. “Annabeth, please, let’s just. The sun is out. Can we just.”

“Yeah, we can,” her voice is small and he wants to tell her that it’s alright, that he has a thousand questions for her, too, and the first one would be, Is Luke the same person you fell in love with?

(Annabeth gets a phone call from her dad, Percy waves goodbye, and clouds come back out.)

>Percy (1536): hey what if we pre game and go to a party on friday

>Piper (1537): whose party??

>Percy (1537): connor and travis stoll

>Hazel (1538): yeah let’s do it!

>Reyna (1539): Don’t ruin this for me, Jason.

>Jason (1540): Reyna PLEASE stop

They do not make it past the eighth shot.

Which, okay, Percy thinks. This is just a test run, really. Just a little alcohol test run on Piper’s bedroom floor, her dirty clothes in a pile under his head. It’s been months since he’s had a drink, and almost a year since he’s had enough to get drunk.

“We’re dumb,” Percy tells her.

“I know,” Piper groans from her bed. Her arm falls off the bed, hanging above Percy’s face. He grabs it.

“How did we end up here?’ He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back.

“I asked if you ever had alcohol before,” he hears her groan and shift on her mattress. “You said yes and I didn’t believe you so I dared you to outdrink me.”

“Did I win?” Percy blinks, staring at a freckle on her forearm. It takes him a moment and a couple tries, but he manages to poke it with his finger.

“We both lost,” Piper reminds him. “It’s the middle of the day and – fuck – we skipped English Lit.”

“Oh my god,” Percy remembers. “Hazel is gonna kill us.”

“We’re dumb,” Piper sighs.

“Can I lay on your bed now?” Percy pokes her freckle again. He swallows down the taste of tequila.

“Is my dirty laundry – is it not comfortable enough?” Piper giggles, squeezing his hand again.

“I – I really don’t want to think about your dirty laundry under – it’s under my head, Piper.”

“Come here, you lost boy,” Piper tugs on his hand.

Percy tries really hard to stand. He tries and he fails, but there’s a bed next to him and when the world spins, he lands on Piper. She’s all skin and bone though, and her sharp elbow finds its way into his gut.

“I’mgonnapuke,” Percy gasps, rolling off of her.

“If you do, I win,” Piper’s arm swings to land on his chest and it does not help his nausea.

“Why didn’t we eat – did we eat lunch?”

“We had a granola bar,” Piper rolls over, her head hitting his shoulder before she pushes her face into it. “We split it.”

“Nature Valley,” Percy remembers. It was his, actually, but Piper claimed half as alcohol tax. He needs a roommate tax, now that he thinks about it. His eyes sting. “Jason is Nature Valley.”

“Jason?”

“Split between us like a granola bar,” Percy presses his cheek to her head. “Granola Jason.”

“He’s – he’s not a granola bar?”

“He is.”

“He is not. ” She presses her forehead into his collarbone. It sorta hurts but he’s also kinda shitfaced.

Percy sniffs her hair, blinking back tears. “Why – have you been using my shampoo?”

Piper giggles into his shirtsleeve.

She’s a thieving idiot but he’d kill a man for her, he thinks.

“You would?” Piper asks, voice weepy and tired and drunk, and he’s concerned she might be able to read his mind.

“Would,” he repeats.

Percy closes his eyes. It’s nice, he thinks. He has so many nice and kind friends. Giving, too, he knows, thinking about Piper’s alcohol stash in her closet that she showed him with a grin. And she listens to him, too, even if she does give him stupid dares. But she also raids his fridge and uses his shampoo. He frowns into her hair. Complicated, this friendship.

Even so, he watches as her ceiling fan spins and spins and spins and hold on. That might actually be his head? Oof. He closes his eyes. He tells the spinning to please stop.

“I’m gonna fall asleep,” he tells her minutes later, eyes open now but heavy, reaching for a pillow and putting it under his head.

Piper doesn’t answer and he can’t see her face. Huh, he thinks.

“Are you sleeping, McLean?” He tries to whisper, bringing a hand around her back.

Piper is a good talker, he thinks. They can usually have a conversation about anything. Just last week, he remembers, they debated saltwater and chlorine swimming pools. She was wrong, but. It was a good conversation, right? He didn’t understand why Frank had to put a hand between him and Piper, hushing them. Ohh, he remembers. They were talking during a movie, that’s why.

But she’s asleep now, and he doesn’t want to have a conversation with her. He just wants to say it, wants to put it out there.

“I’m in love with Annabeth,” Percy whispers into her dark hair. She doesn’t move and he thinks she listens best while asleep. “And I am trying really hard not to be.”

(They wake at eight PM, a concerned Hazel looking down at them, and a pounding headache. Percy manages to vomit in the toilet and Piper cheers triumphantly.)

>Percy (2344): just sat here, probably still drunk

>Percy (2345): remember that one time we finished a bottle of grey goose?

>Rachel (2346): and here I thought you were too good to text me, mr. college

>Rachel (2346): but yes… i haven’t been able to drink vodka since

>Percy (2347): says the girl backpacking across europe

>Percy (2347): remember that one time we dated and you realized you are a lesbian?

>Rachel (2347): yes

>Percy (2348): yr welcome

>Rachel (2349): remember that one time we dated and you realized you are bisexual?

>Percy (2350): thank

>Rachel (2350): yr welcome

“Heard you had a good time with Piper,” Annabeth says the next day, sitting across the table, a strange look on her face.

Their psychology class was canceled, but Annabeth had asked to meet and catch up on coursework. He was glad to get her text, the morning swim practice having kicked his ass. Between swimming and classes and general tomfoolery with Leo and Piper, Percy has been very busy. And, he distantly registers, Annabeth hasn’t been forward about making plans with him since she made him uncomfortable.

Percy opens his laptop, the dumb history essay already on the screen. He frowns at it. It’s due next Monday and he still doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to say about ancient Rome. Who fucking cares, really? Is Rome really relevant?

“Percy?” Annabeth tries again, voice impatient.

“Huh?” Percy looks up. Her face is blank, and it’s weird. She’s usually easy to read. “Oh, yeah. Piper won the dare, ha-ha.”

“Was it fun?” Annabeth’s voice is quiet.

“This hangover isn’t fun,” he squints at the screen, trying to make sense of a sentence he wrote. “I need some tea before I do this.”

“Tea?” Annabeth asks incredulously. “Since when are you a tea drinker?”

“Um,” Percy stands. His head hurts. He shrugs. “Piper suggested it.”

“Piper suggested it,” Annabeth repeats slowly, looking up at him.

“I can still, like, get you a latte or whatever,” Percy stumbles out.

“No,” Annabeth shakes her head, staring at her own laptop screen now. “I have my water bottle. Uh, thank you though.”

Percy waits for her to look up, for her to smile at him or wave him off or something, but she ignores his gaze. It’s his hangover, he thinks. Percy can’t shake the haziness of drinking.

He is too busy looking at the tea menu to notice who is behind the counter.

“Recognize me yet?”

She’s there, he sees. The girl from his history class. She’s grinning at him, like she knows the punchline of a joke he doesn’t.

He narrows his eyes at her nametag. “Ca-lyp-so, yeah, hey.”

Calypso laughs. “You literally just learned my name.”

“I’m Percy,” he gives her a little wave.

“I know,” she rolls her eyes. “I’ve made your coffee, like, more than once.”

“This is so uncomfortable,” he blurts out. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I usually, um – I usually just play on my phone in class.”

She laughs again and it’s a bit ridiculous. He grins.

“I’ve noticed. How’d you do on the midterm?”

“Um,” he shifts his weight to his other foot.

“As expected for someone who plays on their phone during class?” Calypso asks him.

“Um,” his mouth is dry.

“I’m just teasing you,” she says, and her smile is kinder now. “Not a big history fan?”

“Not at all,” he relaxes. “You?”

She shrugs. “I’m a history major. What about you?”

“Undecided,” he sighs heavily. It’s kinda embarrassing, now that he says it aloud. Everyone he knows has a major and the most he’s figured out is that he’s in love with a girl who doesn’t love him back and Piper can outdrink him and Jason is a granola bar. His head hurts. “I’ll probably be in college for the rest of my life, retaking Ancient History until I get a B.”

“You probably aren’t taking good notes,” and he probably could have told her that.

“I’m not taking any notes,” he laughs and she shakes her head.

“I’ll send you mine, if you want,” she shrugs again. “I usually just write a stupid story out of the lecture.”

“Isn’t history one big story anyway?” He frowns. What the fuck is ancient history anyway?

“But it’s a boring story,” she presses, excited. “Until you make it interesting.”

“And your notes do that?” Percy asks skeptically.

“They do a better job than yours,” Calypso shrugs. Percy laughs. He gives her his number and email, and she gives him a black tea on the house. He waves goodbye and promises to pay attention in the next class.

Percy returns to their table, and he’s surprised to see Annabeth rifling her backpack, her hair hanging over her face. Her face is in a deep frown and he sits down slowly.

“Everything okay?” He tries to study her face, but her actions are rushed.

“Yes,” she answers too quickly, blush deepening on her face. Annabeth sits up straight, her eyes on her laptop screen. She types for a few seconds, and Percy realizes that she’s avoiding his stare. He kicks her foot under the table and she frowns deeper at her laptop. She does not kick back.

The last twenty-four hours have been too fucking hazy, he thinks. He just. He just wishes that he hadn’t literally raced Piper to her apartment and split a bottle of tequila and a granola bar. But, on a deeper level, he’s kinda glad that he did because it really was a nice nap.

“What is up with you today?” He snaps.

“What’s up with you ?” Annabeth meets his eyes and good grief, his head is pounding and she’s angry.

“What?” Percy blinks.

“You don’t drink coffee now?”

“What?” Percy blinks.

“You give your number to strangers now?”

“What?” Percy blinks.

“You day drink and skip class now?”

“What?” Percy blinks.

Annabeth closes her laptop screen, and begins to shove her notebooks and charger into her backpack. Her hair is wild about her face, curls sticking up and away from her head. Face red and hands shaking, she packs her bag. Percy can only watch, his own face slack.

“I feel like – like – there’s a disconnect between us,” Annabeth finally looks at him, and her face is set.

“Because I don’t drink coffee?” Percy lowers his voice, leaning forward and away from the spot she put him in.

“That’s – that’s not really my point,” Annabeth leans forward, eyes flickering to ensure she’s not making a scene.

“What’s your deal?” Percy’s eyes flicker to his stupid fucking history essay and he feels a wave of frustration roll across his chest.

Annabeth scoffs, “ My deal?”

“Yeah,” he frowns.

“It’s always a problem with me, isn’t it?” Annabeth seethes, standing.

“Uh,” Percy doesn’t know what to say.

“What about you taking a drunk nap with Piper, or drinking tea, or acting fucking weird lately, or– or hiding parts of your life.” Annabeth takes a deep breath, steadies herself. She stands straight. “My problems can be discussed over a birthday cake and streamers and – you know what? Forget it. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Or,” Percy looks up at her, and he’s aware of the miserable look on his face, “you can sit down and we can talk about it.”

Annabeth stares at him for a moment, vulnerable and hurt. “You didn’t want me to talk the other day.”

“Then you can run,” Percy offers instead, because he doesn’t want to care anymore and he hates that she’s right. Autumn changes the sky and the wind and the sun.

Annabeth’s face smooths into a stony expression, and yeah, he’s kinda pleased to see it. She looks how he wants to feel. Uncaring, unfazed, unattached.

(She leaves, Calypso raises an eyebrow, and Percy doesn’t type a single word.)

>Annabeth (2231): you really hurt my feelings today

>Annabeth (2232): we haven’t really talked in weeks

>Annabeth (2233): then you pull that shit at the cafe

>Percy (2234): are you looking for a fight or an apology?

>Annabeth (2235): every time we talk it’s a fight lately

>Percy (2236): then we won’t talk

(Percy thinks of Annabeth’s face and sees a fight he might not win. Resignation, bitterness, and scathing words.)

Percy likes the Stolls, actually.

He thinks they’re hilarious, two troublemakers who never fail to impress him with their shenanigans. They always threaten to beat his PRs and offer a keg stand to him. Sure, Percy thinks, beer cans in hand, staring out at the chaos that is a college party. He likes the Stolls.

But he hates their friends.

A sweating man leans across Percy, reaching for the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. Percy dodges his arm, tucking the beers closer to him. There’s no way Percy would touch anything that he didn't open himself.

“Goat Man!” He hears, and looks up to see a shirtless and – Percy thinks it’s sweat – sweaty Travis, arms raised over his head to greet him.

Percy lifts his beer to Travis, grinning at how quickly he falls back into dancing with the brunette in front of him. Fucking wasted, Percy laughs to himself, and it’s barely nine.

He should have pre-gamed, he scolds himself again. Percy was too much of a coward to meet at Reyna’s apartment. The thought of facing Annabeth, of seeing her hurt face and their fractured friendship, not knowing what to say – he needs to get drunk.

He steps out into the living room, bodies moving in time with the bass from the speakers. It’s a pretty big space for two college athletes, and Percy idly considers that the brothers are in an embezzlement scheme or something. Percy weaves his way to the other side of the room, where Jason and Piper are waiting for him.

“Don’t puke,” Piper grins at him.

Percy knocks back his beer, flipping her off.

“Brave,” Jason nods. “For someone who didn’t come to Reyna and Nico’s.”

Percy shrugs, his cotton shirt already sticking to his back in the heat of the apartment.

“What’s up with that, anyway?” Piper takes a drink, eyebrows furrowed. “Annabeth has been a miserable bitch all day.”

“So has he,” Jason flicks Percy’s forehead. “Fucking moped all day.”

“Bye,” Percy raises his beer to his lips and does not move an inch from his spot.

“Bye,” Piper agrees, taking a matching swig.

“Um,” Jason looks between them. “Are we not gonna talk about it?”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Percy shrugs, speaking over the music.

“Okay, chill,” Piper raises a hand at him, rolling her eyes. There’s a cheer from the kitchen and Percy Does Not Want to Know. “It was just a question.”

“That was my answer,” Percy shrugs again.

Piper punches his arm hard. “Enough with your fucking shrugging. I can’t stand it anymore. Your ambivalence is insulting.”

“Keep drinking,” Jason suggests to her. “Ambivalence is too big of a word to be using tonight.”

“You’re an English language affogato,” Percy smirks at her, just to watch her eyes narrow into a glare.

“Hey,” Hazel pops up, wrapping an arm around Percy’s waist. “Why do we all looking fucking hot?”

“Because you’re drunk,” Percy laughs and puts an arm around his shoulders and squeezes.

“You’re not?” Hazel looks wildly up at him. “Not drunk, not hot. You’re hot – objectively, obviously – but not to me. You are not hot, Percy. But also, you are not drunk.”

“Who is on Hazel Protection Duty?” Percy looks at Jason and Piper.

“I am,” Frank gasps from Percy’s left now, sweating and trying to breathe. “She’s fast as hell, though.” Hazel laughs and grabs Frank’s hand, leading him to the moving mass of people across the room, music sounding through their hands and hips.

Percy stares at his friends, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. “I shoulda pre-gamed.”

“We’re, like, four drinks ahead of you, buddy,” Jason empties his bottle. “You gonna get drunk or be a miserable bitch all night?”

Both, probably, he wants to say but doesn’t.

Percy finishes his beer, ends up doing four shots with Connor and Travis to the chants of “Goat Man”, and drinks a Redbull concoction that might actually kill him the next day. Beck finds him and hands over a hard seltzer that they race to finish. Percy wins. He’s a good swimmer, he tells Beck, who laughs and punches him in the arm.

“Have fun, man,” Beck waves. “Don’t trust anything Travis tells you about the keg.”

Percy is a different person an hour and a half later, leaning against the back of the couch, laughing with Leo, when he sees Luke. The older man is standing outside of the kitchen, his back against the wall, and for a moment, Percy thinks that he’s grimacing but then, his face breaks into a smile, bright and happy at who he is looking at. There’s a group of people blocking the person in front of Luke, and Percy’s blood burns to find out who it is, and then his blood burns hotter for having to guess.

It should be her, Percy thinks and looks away. It should be Annabeth and that’s it. Luke should be fucking elated, actually, to be with Annabeth. She’s funny and stubborn and smart and Percy hurt her feelings and he hasn’t seen her all night. He takes another swig of his beer and nods to Leo’s story.

Percy’s trying not to give a fuck, actually, thank you very much. Fuck Annabeth and her stupid hair and her stupid laugh and her stupid boyfriend. He’s pressed that he’s shit-faced and his only thoughts are of her and not, like, trying to find a new way to die at a college party. He is in his bag, he thinks, and looks around. Well. Metaphorically speaking.

Fucking bitter. Annoyed and wounded and sarcastic and angry and not – not even at the right person, fuck. Percy no longer hears Leo, no longer comprehends what his friend is telling him. He sees a flash of white and feels a tug, and suddenly, he’s turning to speak with who grabbed his arm.

“Read my story yet?” Calypso asks him, grinning and wearing a white shirt.

“White shirt,” Percy comments, nodding to her shirt. It’s white and he wants to say something about it, that it looks good against her brown skin, but he’s probably shit-faced and he’s miserable.

Calypso laughs at him, and it makes him grin.

“What are you – did the Stolls bully you too?”

“Sure did,” Calypso laughs. “Travis is in my sociology class.”

Percy shakes his head, and now that he’s started, he can’t stop. “Help,” he tells her.

Calypso laughs, her face red and smile big. She reaches forward and holds his head still. “Let’s get you another drink.”

“Yes,” he begins to nod, and she giggles before she puts her hands on his face again, stilling his movements before he can’t stop again.

Calypso leads him to the kitchen, dodging bodies and precarious situations with each step. He almost loses her behind a kid with a bottle of wine, so he grabs her hand before she disappears. She’d probably, like, disappear into the ether or some shit. He doesn’t know.

Calypso finds an unopened hard cider and hands it to him. She finds her own, and he opens them.

“To a B,” she lifts her bottle, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“To be,” Percy brings it to his lips. “Or not to be.”

“That – that,” Calypso bends over, giggling. “That’s not. Okay. Alright. Sure.”

“What?” He nudges her arm, her skin warm under his hand. “Tell me.”

“Do you need an English tutor, too?”

“Honestly?” Percy takes another sip, tilts his head to the side. “I mixed up aff– affogato and afi–affici–affician– you know what? It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“No,” Calypso is gasping for air, and he knows that she’s, like, just as drunk. The world spins if he stays still for too long, so he puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I’mgonnafall,” he exhales.

“No,” Calypso stands up straight, face attempting to look serious but failing. She’s cute. Her light brown hair tickles his hand and her eyebrows are pushed together in false admonishment.

“You’re cute,” he tells her, and she doesn’t even blush, she just tilts her head and looks at him. What a night. What a college experience. He feels like he’s crossing across the entire spectrum of human emotion.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Calypso blinks up at him.

“What?” His head spins a bit.

“The spectrum thing.”

“I’m bisexual,” he remembers. “This apartment is all-inclusive.”

“Percy, I–I don’t think that’s what – are you passing English?” She gives him an amused look.

“Dance with me,” Percy lowers his hand from her shoulder to Calypso’s wrist, a warmth in his chest spreading from the look on her face. “Fuck the English.”

“Are – can you dance right now?”

Percy grins and shrugs because fuck you, Piper, he’d rather be ambivalent than whatever the fuck this other emotion is.

Calypso grabs his hand back, leading him through a group of people. Goddamn. She stops when they’re across the room, looking up at him and smiling. It’s a friendly smile, so out of place among the students who are pressed against each other, little space between them. There’s no intimacy in this space, not really. A layer of sweat on people’s faces, fingers holding hips, and lips grazing.

“That girl from yesterday,” she says over the music. “Is she– “

“No,” he shakes his head. Percy is drunk and miserable but also not? Because. Because it’s not that he wants to be with Annabeth. He just wishes she was with someone who wasn’t, you know, a hotheaded, manipulative, cheating asshole. And he doesn’t want to think about it, but doesn’t he deserve someone, too?

Calypso throws him another curious look, stepping closer to him, and Percy’s hand finds her hip. It’s – it’s not bad. He’s shitfaced and to the wind and Calypso smells like flowers and sweet sweat and then she turns during the next song, her back to his chest and his hands gripping her hips. Okay. He is drunk and dancing and he is rubbing his nose along the side of her neck and it is wrong but he doesn’t give a fuck.

They move and sway and when his lips graze against the side of her neck, he can hear her intake of breath. Drunk Percy, he thinks, goddamn, you really don’t give a fuck. And he doesn’t, does he, when Calypso turns back around, her arms wrapping around his neck, somehow even closer . Songs pass and he feels a light layer of sweat on his skin, alcohol coursing through his veins. But there’s no comfort between them, he should know. There’s no intimacy, no failed words and no line between them.

It’s why he lowers his face and kisses her.

Drunk Percy is released, a body with little inhibition and a conscientiousness that is so. It is so far from his mind, actually. He pulls Calypso even closer still, her mouth tasting like hard seltzer and salt. She’s sweet and white hot somehow, fuck, as she kisses him back. He feels her hands on the back of his head, feels her hips press against him, and he doesn’t give a fuck.

He’s a good swimmer, yeah, but he pulls back all the same, his breath dancing across her lips. They’re still swaying, a half-assed effort to dance. Calypso looks at him, considering again, an unread story in his email. He glances at her lips once – twice – before she kisses him again, and they should. They should move, actually, and go somewhere that is not in the middle of the party, because her arms wrap around his neck tighter, and Percy’s hands find their way lower down her back and it’s inappropriate but he doesn’t give a fuck.

Calypso does, stepping back and bringing her hands over his, pressing his palms closer to the small of her back.

She nods her head towards the rest of the apartment, lips swollen and face flushed.

“Are we gonna– “

“Maybe,” he asks his head to stop spinning and his heart to stop hurting. He’s drunk and miserable and she’s drunk and sweet.

“You’ll still come to the cafe?” Calypso steps close again.

“Why? Wanna – do you wanna show me something?” Percy pulls her closer, grinning at her.

“I wanna show you something now ,” she says brazenly and he could choke on the air if he wasn’t frozen like a stone gargoyle. “But I’ll settle for another drink.”

“How about,” he laughs loudly, and she smirks back up at him. Percy doesn’t finish his question, because he’s kissing her again, his hand moving up her body to wrap around her jaw, tilting her face up to his. Closeness and a lack of intimacy, a layer of sweat and music, not a fuck to give.

They find a case of PBR, do shots with Jason, and they dance and he is not alone.

“You are a very nice person,” Piper tells Calypso, her eyes looking her up and down. “What are you doing sucking this one’s face?”

Calypso laughs, unembarrassed and real.

He sees her, of course, when he’s leaning against the kitchen counter and Calypso is settled between his legs. He sees Annabeth just beyond the kitchen’s entryway. Her face is flushed, and she’s wearing a blue shirt he’s never seen her wear before, hands moving and laughing as she talks to Nico. She looks different. Or, he downs a shot and thinks, he’s never seen her under this kind of haze before. Percy knows he’s staring, knows that there’s an entire group of people between them.

Calypso bumps her head into his shoulder, her hair sticking to her forehead, and she grins. He barely has the wherewithal to kiss her on the first try, the room spinning and music blaring. She laughs into his mouth, and he kisses that too. Percy tells himself that Annabeth will always be just a friend with a hothead boyfriend and tugs Calypso closer.

“I gotta run to the bathroom,” she looks up at him. “You’re not gonna run, are you?”

There’s a choice here, he knows.

“Nope,” he presses a kiss to her cheek.

Calypso looks at him, considering yet again.

Calypso laughs, and he likes that he can’t tell if it’s at him or with him. He doesn’t give a fuck either way, so he shrugs. His hands find their way back into her hair, and she leans against him again. Percy kisses her.

He ignores the feeling of a crowbar lodged under one of his ribs, a precipatory season and a changing atmosphere.

“See ya in a minute,” she steps away, smiling, and he waves.

“Jackson,” he hears a second later. It’s Luke, and he’s different too. His face looks lighter, more relaxed, beer in his hand.

Percy stares at him, face impassive and his own shoulders relaxed. Luke is pretty fucking stupid, he thinks, to try to be friendly now. “I don’t remember your last name.”

“Castellan,” Luke frowns.

“Castellan,” Percy stares at him. He wonders what look is on his face, if it’s the annoyance or disgust that usually accompanies a mention of Luke’s existence.

“Cute girl,” the senior tries, voice even and face less friendly.

“Guess we both have a thing for baristas,” Percy nods.

Luke is openly glaring at him now, and Percy shrugs, shit-eating grin on his face. He doesn’t care, does he? He doesn’t want friendly discourse. He wants their similarities to only be these: baristas and a sunshine goblin.

“You’re an asshole, Jackson,” Luke takes a swig of beer.

“Guess we’re more similar than I thought,” Percy nods, no longer leaning against the counter.

Percy takes a step closer to him, and he’s never realized before, but, yeah, he’s taller than Luke. Drunk Percy is pleased. He meets Luke’s gaze, his own passive whereas the senior’s is critical. Percy can’t fucking believe that this is the guy that Annabeth loves so much, that she clings to like a fucking marsupial.

“I don’t know what she sees in you,” Luke grins and it’s unfriendly.

“Respect and decency,” he hazards a guess.

“Is that what you call it?” Luke brings the beer bottle to his lips again, raising an eyebrow. “You didn’t give a fuck yesterday.”

“I don’t give a fuck tonight, either,” Percy snaps, skin sensitive and patience thinning and his secret out there. If he was a miserable bitch before, he thinks, he’s gonna be fucking raging in a second.

Percy sees a flash of blonde over Luke’s shoulder and he wills his eyes to remain neutral. He must fail, though, because Luke chuckles, low and unfunny.

“I’m gonna leave soon,” he sets his empty beer bottle on the counter next to Percy’s elbow. “Make sure my girlfriend makes it home safe, won’t you?”

Percy doesn’t know what to say to that. His head is spinning and the music is loud and his ribs are on fire. Luke smirks, point made, and leaves.

He sees a flash of blonde, a head of curls and a blue shirt and a battle he can’t win. Annabeth is laughing against Luke’s lips, her arms wrapped around his waist, and Luke’s hand tugs on her hair playfully. She’s not miserable, he sees. She’s laughing and kissing and bright.

Luke lets go of her, his eyes meeting Percy’s, and he waves. He isn’t miserable, either. Luke is scarred and smirking and a shadow. Annabeth looks over her shoulder, a look of confusion on her face. He registers a steely look on her face before Percy avoids her eyes, instead raising a hand to wave back at Luke.

Line and a cross and a blue and white.

Calypso comes into view, white shirt and face pink. She sees him and her face breaks into a smile, a laugh already rolling off her lips.

“Wanna go back to my–”

“Yeah, okay.” She laughs into his mouth.

(Calypso leaves in the morning, a headache that lasts all day, and a concerned Jason.)

>Annabeth (1956): guess you and luke are more similar than you thought

(Percy shuts off his phone, downs a couple aspirins, and doesn’t give a fuck.)

Chapter 4: run, run, run

Summary:

What’s there to say? Leaves fall, love isn’t returned, and life goes on.

Chapter Text

He’s a swimmer, not a runner.

“You awful bitch,” Grover gasps, shaking his head, shock written across his face.

“Ugh,” Percy rubs a hand over his eyes.

“She’s got no context,” Grover says to himself more than to Percy.

“Well,” Percy grumbles, looking away.

“This motherfucker,” his best friend laughs incredulously. “Do you think she can read your mind?”

“Um,” Percy feels nausea roll across him.

“Mother fucker, ” Grover screeches, hitting his own laptop screen. Percy feels a blow as if he could be slapped via Skype.

“I – Listen.” Percy tries, voice strained. He stops talking.

He is lying down across his bedroom floor, his chin settled on his hands, the sound of Jason’s music playing from the hallway. It’s Sunday evening, and Percy is waiting for his bedsheets to be finished in the dryer. There’s – there’s something he can’t place that’s coursing through his veins. He had spent much of the morning passing through the bathroom just to check his reflection in the mirror. Brooding, as usual, but younger and softer and twisted. The look on his face had looked like regret, but it felt older, sharper. He doesn’t want to name it, doesn’t want to face it.

Grover’s face is unreadable, and then: “Any time now.”

Percy laughs at the assurance of his friend’s attention, at the wordless way that Grover knows Percy cannot keep a secret from him. That’s their friendship, he thinks. No secrets. No hard feelings. No missed words. He misses Grover more than he had thought possible, and in the mix of his freshman semester, Percy wishes yet again that he had received a scholarship from Grover’s school.

But he didn’t and he’s here and he’s an awful bitch whose mouth is not opening to say the things he wants to say.

“Percy,” Grover lets out a shaky exhale after a moment, and Percy knows that Grover is going to name the conflict written across his face, the one that he had studied in the mirror all afternoon. “Don’t you care? About – about yourself or your friends?”

And he does, he does, he does. The leaves on the trees have long fallen, the last week of October looming, and the air bites at his skin each time he steps outside. He hadn’t thought he would, but now, each time he steps outside, Percy wishes that summer had stayed just a little longer. He’s resigned and he’s sad about it.

(Even worse, when Percy steps outside, the sky a very specific grey, he knows that he cares more than he’d like to admit.)

He meets her the next morning as planned from the week before, her hair pulled into a pony-tail, her green apron over a white shirt. Percy feels a wave of nausea, of nervousness. Calypso is laughing at something a customer says, her head thrown back and eyes crinkled. It’s how she is, he knows. Intentional, real, and always laughing at a joke. He just hopes that he didn’t – that he didn’t make her feel like a joke.

Calypso sees him out of the corner of her eye and her smile does not falter. It helps his anxiety, seeing the easy way she gestures for him to take a seat with a smile. He sees the leather lounge chairs near the window and another wave of nausea rolls across his body. He remembers sitting in one seat with Annabeth, her head resting on his shoulder as he played Tap Tap Fish. It feels like a lifetime ago but he’s also really dramatic, so there’s that.

He sits at a table closest to the door, caring and uncaring and confused again.

“Hey,” Calypso sits down after a few minutes, breathless from a busy cafe, pulling their history textbook from her bag. “How are ya?”

Percy tries to smile, but there’s guilt eating at him. “Hi,” he cringes at his own voice. “About – this weekend. I’m sorry, that I didn’t, uh, after you left –”

“Call, text, send a messenger bird?” She grins at him, unembarrassed whereas Percy feels vulnerable, exposed by his own carelessness, his own dismissal of his feelings, her feelings and – and – Annabeth’s feelings, even if no one owes each other anything.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, but it’s out of habit rather than humor. “I’m sorry.”

Calypso sighs, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. Her face is impassive, but her eyes travel his face, searching. She speaks and it’s not unkind, “Percy, I didn’t make an effort either. Also, no offense, but I’m not looking for a boyfriend or, like, a partner. I’m sure you feel the same.”

“Okay,” he nods after a beat of silence, not quite following but sensing a boundary between them. There’s a weight lifted from his chest he didn’t know was there.

She sees through him, leaning forward across the table, her lips fighting a smile. Her shirt collar falls a bit with this action, and he can see a familiar love bite on her collarbone. It shouldn’t, but it makes him blush. Calypso tilts her head, considering, “I didn’t think your heart was in it anyway.”

(The shade of grey in the sky cuts through his chest like a personal attack, she gives him an understanding smile and he sees a friend.)

>Beck (2113): hey prac is cancelled tmrw morning tell Grace

>Percy (2114): oh nice haha got a paper to finish by midnight

>Beck (2215): get those grades up bro

>Percy (2215): can you tell coach that i got a history tutor

>Beck (2216): why the fuck are you so afraid of him

>Percy (2217): the baseball bat bro

>Beck (2217): bro

The most predictable part of this fucking disaster, Percy thinks, is how determined Annabeth is to avoid talking about it.

He had walked Calypso back to her dorm once they submitted their papers, and by the time he had returned home, it was nearing one AM. Jason had texted earlier in the evening to say that he wouldn’t be at their apartment for the night, and that he would be home the next morning. Grumbling about his unreliable alarm clock roommate, Percy had checked his phone’s alarm more than once before he fell asleep, drool pooling on his pillow, forgetting to plug his phone into a charger.

He wakes to the sound of his doorbell, the morning light lazily shining through his blinds. Groggily, he wakes, and the angle of the sun is deceiving, a false reality that takes him a moment to discern.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he scrambles out of bed, grabbing the first shirt he sees, rubbing his eyes awake as he rushes to his door. Percy doesn’t question who it could be; his only thoughts are about his missed psychology lecture, his dead phone battery, and how tired he still is.

He swings the door open, a beam of morning light hitting his periphery.

“Hi,” Annabeth says shyly, face scrunched in concern.

“Hi,” Percy blinks at her.

There’s a pause.

“Your shirt is on backwards,” her face pinks, and he looks down at his shirt. It’s on inside-out and backwards and Jesus Christ. Annabeth is here and they haven’t properly spoken in a couple weeks.

“Um,” Percy stares at her. There’s so much he wants to say to her. He can’t speak. He’s barely awake. He hasn’t seen her since the party.

“You missed class,” she clears her throat, and he wonders if she’s thinking about the last text she had sent him. Percy is: it wraps around his brain like a cold sheet, lacking comfort and closeness. He had deleted it from their messages two nights ago, angry and disbelieving that she might have been right to send it.

“I just woke up,” he takes a step back, acutely aware that he hasn’t brushed his teeth yet. Percy gestures for her to come in.

Annabeth tries to take a step, her feet dancing towards the doorway, but she hesitates. It hurts.

“I just came by–” she looks beyond his shoulder, her face pink before she looks down. “I know we’re fighting, but – I’m not here to – don’t – don’t miss class because you’re avoiding me.”

“That’s not – I didn’t – uh–”

“I don’t want to argue,” she says dejectedly, and he can tell that she is tired too. “Please.”

“Okay,” his mouth is dry and he wants to go back to bed.

“Percy,” Annabeth makes eye contact with him. Her voice is soft but firm. “You gotta keep your scholarship, okay?”

“I know,” Percy responds equally quiet, because she’s right and he cares.

“Did you find a tutor for your history pre-req yet?” She presses, not unkindly. Annabeth’s eyebrows are furrowed, her feet shifting from side to side. He wishes that she would just come in, that they don’t have to speak in the hallway, his shirt backwards and inside-out and the sun blinding his right eye. Percy wishes he could tell her, but he can’t.

“Yeah,” he says after a beat.

Annabeth gazes back at him and he sees it: confusion, realization, stone. She glances one more time beyond his shoulder and he sees her jaw clench before she tightens her grip on her backpack, feet shuffling.

“Okay,” she nods and nods, looking down the hallway. “I’ll see you tomorrow for movie night?”

“Anna–”

“I gotta go,” her voice is tight, a quick and unfunny laugh. “Gonna go for a run.”

“I can come with you – “ Percy tries.

Annabeth is halfway down the hall, her eyes flickering to his before she looks away, head and voice shaking. “Nope, no – uh, thanks though. Maybe some other time, mkay? I’ll see you tomorrow night. I’ll email you, uh, my notes. Just – just – just come to class.”

(She emails him her notes for the day and he stares at the lack of personality in the email, mind swirling and chest hurting and tongue tied.)

>Percy (1231): are you gonna move in with piper or

>Jason (1232): hahah no

>Jason (1233): thought you had calico over

>Percy (1233): calico

>Jason (1234): best way to get over someone… yknow

>Jason (1255): guess not? Yikes

He and Jason enter the apartment to find it already filled with their friends, the sound of their bickering and the scent of popcorn. There’s a steady beat in Percy’s chest until he sees Annabeth.

Grover was right, Percy knows. Annabeth has no idea of the thoughts and emotions that swell and swirl around Percy’s head and heart. There’s no reasonable explanation for his frostiness, an early morning freeze that kisses the memory of summer goodbye. He feels guilty and vindicated and angry and resigned all at once while she only sees his actions. And he had thought, truthfully, that Annabeth would finally be able to read it across his face the moment she saw him.

He meets Annabeth’s eyes and she smiles, small and friendly, but she doesn’t read shit.

And she doesn’t talk to him, doesn’t make an effort to say hello or ask how he’s doing. No texts, no calls, no messenger birds and he feels like it’s all a joke. He doesn’t make an effort either.

Hazel chooses a movie because she’s the easiest out of all of them to indulge, and Percy stretches out on the floor beside Leo, waiting for the popcorn bowl to make it his way, when there’s a brisk knock at the door.

“Late,” Piper mutters above the sound of the opening of Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron.

“Hush,” Annabeth grumbles, stepping over Percy and Leo to get to the door.

Percy doesn’t turn around, wondering why Nico – the only one not there – requires to be let in like a little prince. Finally, the popcorn bowl makes it to him, and just as he’s shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth disgustingly:

“Hey,” he hears Luke say, and there’s a shuffling of jackets and sweaters and a giggle.

“Late,” Piper mutters again.

“Hey, everyone, hope you don’t mind I’m crashing,” Luke stands, peering over them, Annabeth’s arm wrapped around his waist. Luke makes eye contact with him for a moment and Percy really fucking wishes his mouth wasn’t filled to the brim with popcorn. He almost chokes on a kernel in his effort to shoot a glare at Luke. It’s not his best moment. It’s not Luke’s best moment, either, because then Piper can’t take it anymore.

“Will you sit the fuck down?” She snaps, pausing the movie, and Annabeth flinches at her tone. “You’re already late.”

Luke glowers down at Piper and Hazel humphs from beside Percy. There’s. Hm. There’s something happening between Piper and Luke and Annabeth while Percy is choking on a popcorn kernel.

“Bro, you okay?” Leo bumps his head into Percy’s shoulder. “Do you need some water?”

Percy nods and Leo rises, sighing and shaking his head.

“We’ll just, um,” Annabeth steps over Jason. Luke sits on the couch cushion, pulling Annabeth onto his lap. “This works.”

“Great,” Hazel says, voice clipped. “I’m ready to get fucked up. Press play.”

Leo brings a glass of water to Percy and he takes three sips before Hazel steals it. He doesn’t see the popcorn bowl again, which is just another bad omen and he scowls to himself. It’s the most awkward movie Percy has ever watched, probably. He can’t help but feel as if there are eyes watching him the entire time.

It’s black and white, Percy thinks.

Luke is a giant dickhead and he’s rude and dismissive and dishonest and manipulative. He can hear Annabeth’s stifled giggles as the movie plays, and he can hear Luke’s shuffling to get comfortable. He can feel the line between right and wrong and he doesn’t understand why she can’t feel it – see it – for herself.

Fuck Percy’s place in the middle of all of that, he thinks. Annabeth should know better, feel better than whatever the fuck is going on between her and her boyfriend. Percy knows that he’s emitting negative energy, that his tense body and taut face are screaming his discomfort and anger. But he doesn’t care.

Percy is convinced that Luke’s sole purpose in life is to piss him off. Because, really, he thinks, when the fuck does Luke ever come to movie nights? When – when does Luke show up ever? Also, he adds at the end because it’s important: he quite likes this movie. Watching it, maybe even getting a little emotional alongside Hazel, would have been good for him.

He needs a good cry, objectively. Horse movie notwithstanding. But he can’t do that since he feels watched, like a lab specimen with a bad attitude. A stone gargoyle in the center of a museum, if you will.

The movie ends and Jason is wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve and Reyna is cuddled into Piper’s side and Frank is fast asleep. Percy begins to stretch, his muscles aching from swim practice and not moving for two hours. He needs to get outta here before he says some stupid shit and ruins the night.

Percy doesn’t look at the couch, afraid to make eye contact with Luke or Annabeth. He feels rubbed raw, his talk with Grover, with Calypso, and his non-talk with Annabeth pulling apart his ribcage. There’s movement behind him as he takes his time putting on his shoes, the laces twisting around his fingers, a burning in his ribs and his face and his fingers.

“Percy?” He hears Reyna ask him, concerned. “You leaving?”

“Yeah,” he says to his shoes. “Early swim.”

“Early swim?” Jason asks and Percy just. He wants to throw a sneaker at his dense roommate’s head but he doesn’t. It’s about context, Grover had said. No one will know why you’re an awful bitch until you tell them.

“Yup,” Percy finally ties a knot, lying, and grateful that the living room lights are still off. He pops his head in from the hallway, and he sees faces frown at him.

He makes eye contact with Annabeth, her eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed, and he thinks for a split second that she’s able to read his face, his emotions, and get some fucking context.

Annabeth’s face breaks into a smile, disingenuous and hurt, and he knows that she still doesn’t see shit. “See you later.”

He waves, not trusting his voice and the burning in his throat, and welcomes the autumn cold.

(Percy walks and walks and walks and Jason is long asleep by the time he returns home.)

“Hey, wake up. You fell asleep. Class is over.”

“Oof. Sorry. Late night.”

“You left early.”

“...”

“I’ll send you my notes.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s fine.”

“Annabeth, can we ta–”

“I’m going for a run, sorry! See you later!”

“I don’t think she wants to talk.”

“Coffee,” Grover nods sagely during their Wednesday night Facetime. “Isn’t that what you do? Bring each other coffee?”

“I mean, we did ,” Percy sighs. “Before things got fucked.”

“Before you fell in love with your best friend.”

“You know what,” Percy smacks his phone camera.

“Ouch,” Grover laughs. “Just saying.”

“She just – and we – goblin–”

“Poetic,” Grover interrupts.

Percy hits his phone screen in an effort to attack Grover again. It reminds him of Tap Tap Fish and he’s actually the most pathetic person he knows.

“You know I’m right,” Grover persists. “It’s gotta be you who tries first.”

“I know,” Percy sighs. “And I’m pathetic.”

“That too.”

(Grover rags on him for the next ten minutes and it helps more than Percy can fathom. He misses his best friends.)

Percy slides the paper cup across the desk, her eyes flickering to watch its movement.

"There’s an extra shot in it," Percy says nervously, looking away.

"No, thank you," Annabeth says, leveled. "I had – I drank some at home."

Percy thinks that this is probably true, but she looks exhausted. Her face is blotchy, her hair pulled up haphazardly, and her frown deep.

"You look like shit, no offense. Please take it."

"Percy "

"Listen. Just. Annabeth, please take the coffee," his voice is strained, throat burning, and tongue bitter. “We don’t – we don’t have to talk.”

Percy grips one hand around his backpack handle, ready to run if she denies it.

He’s a swimmer, not a runner.

He meets her eyes. Annabeth stares at him with a stony face, much like the one he saw at the Stolls' party, like the sounds and bodies and lights around them are just as foreign as each other.

Slowly, her face softens, her eyes tired and lips relaxed. He wants to give her a hug, wants to brush her stray curl behind her ear, but he forfeited these liberties the moment he forgot that she was his friend first.

"Okay," Annabeth says, voice quiet, fingers reaching forward, gracious.

Percy releases the breath he didn't know he was holding. Annabeth's shoulders loosen, her hands shaking as she brings the coffee to her lips.

(They used to do this wordlessly, he remembers, but it was different then.)

Percy sees her as he steps to the door of the cafe.

She’s far away enough that he sees her, but he doubts that she could differentiate him in the crowd. Annabeth’s hair is in a ponytail and it swings with each step she makes, her face flushed against the cold, earbuds in. She’s running, and he stares at the mittens she has on. They’re cute. Her mittens. Annabeth is running with mittens on. It’s not even freezing temperature, he thinks, and she’s wearing green mittens.

Someone opens the door to the coffeeshop and a wave of warmth washes over him. He enters.

“Look,” Calypso pushes a latte across the counter, face grinning. “It’s a fucking seahorse, isn’t that some shit?”

“Sure is,” Percy smiles at her pride for her espresso art. She waves him off as another customer approaches the counter, a promise to study with him at her place later.

(It’s black and white, he thinks. He’s in love with Annabeth, not Calypso. The latte is sweet and beautiful but it lacks warmth.)

“Percy,” Piper leans against his arm during English lit, settling in for her usual nap. “Do you want us to, like, invite Calypso to functions?”

“Functions.”

“Don’t be a dick,” she flicks his forehead. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “We’re just friends.”

“ We are just friends,” she gestures to herself, Leo, Hazel, and Percy.

“ We didn’t hook up,” Leo corrects her.

“ Please, ” Percy groans and smacks his head with his copy of The Canterbury Tales.

“Maybe a movie night,” Hazel suggests to Piper as if Percy no longer exists.

“What’s your name again?” Annabeth smiles brightly, extending her hand.

“Calypso,” she laughs. “Piper invited me. She cornered me at work, actually.”

“Yup,” Piper grins, pleased.

“Nice to meet you, Cal,” Annabeth’s eyes narrow, mouth still smiling. In a different light, it might look like she’s grimacing. Her hair is wet, and Percy knows that she just came back from a run.

He wonders what she’s running from.

“Ah, call me Calypso, please,” the brunette sits on the couch beside Percy.

“I thought your name was Calico,” Jason frowns. “But I was also really drunk when we met.”

“Cal is a cute name,” Annabeth nods to herself.

“Calico,” Jason tries out. “That’s cuter than Cal.”

“Dude,” Percy kicks him.

“I’m Luke,” the senior extends a hand, smirking. “Annabeth’s boyfriend.”

“Oh, aren’t you an upperclassman?”

“Luke’s a senior,” Percy supplies. “He’s, like, older -older but he chooses to hang around the freshmen.”

“What the fuck,” Annabeth frowns at him but he ignores it on the principle that his words are true.

“I’m twenty-one,” Luke rolls his eyes, smiling at Calypso and shaking his head like, listen to this guy!

“You two are cute together,” she smiles politely.

“Yeah, thanks,” Luke mutters.

“Thanks, Cal,” Annabeth beams.

Calypso blinks at Annabeth’s smile and Luke’s impassive face. Percy can relate.

“So how did you two meet?” Reyna breaks the silence.

“We’re in the same history class,” Calypso bumps shoulders with Percy. Annabeth scowls.

“Plus the Stolls’ party,” Luke reminds everyone. Many nods all around. Drunk Percy was not subtle.

Calypso laughs because she’s open and unashamed and has no reason to understand the crowbar tucked underneath Percy’s ribs. “Plus the Stolls’ party.”

“It’s nice of you to tutor Percy, Cal,” Annabeth says delicately, voice even.

“Calypso,” Percy reminds her. He frowns and really, he thinks, Annabeth isn’t giving Calypso a chance. He doesn’t know why and it pisses him off. “It’s not Cal, Anna Elizabeth.”

“Anna Elizabeth,” Luke laughs loudly.

Annabeth turns her head to glare at Percy and holyfuckingshit. If looks could kill.

“Yeah,” Luke nods along, leaning back on his hands and Percy could, like, reach Luke’s jaw with his foot from this angle, probably. He thinks about it. “He can’t lose his scholarship.”

Percy settles Luke with a look and after a moment, the senior looks away.

“Oh, ha,” Calypso waves her hand to relieve some tension. “It gives me an excuse to talk about history.”

“Can we,” Hazel’s eyes are glazed over. She gives Percy a sympathetic look and fucking great, he thinks, now Hazel knows too. “Can we please watch the movie?”

Calypso laughs, pressing her shoulder into Percy’s. He can feel her discomfort. Annabeth notices and scowls more. Percy wants to press the pad of his thumb between her eyebrows, to smooth her face.

“Press play,” Luke suggests.

“Don’t tell her what to do,” Annabeth mutters and an even more awkward silence ensues.

Hazel waits a moment before she presses play, sending Annabeth a questioning look that goes unanswered.

Later, he walks her to her building, and she smiles up at him, the tip of her nose pink. “So.”

“So.” He parrots back.

“Annabeth?”

“Annabeth.”

(Calypso gives him a hug and does not come to another function.)

It’s unfair, really. She’s running around campus with green mittens on and she has no idea how stupidly sweet that is.

“What are you doing here?”

Percy looks up, eyes tired and right shoulder aching, and determined to finish his English Lit essay. In the bright light of the library, standing between rows of books, is Annabeth. Percy’s face smiles before he sees the concerned look on her face.

“Um,” his eyebrows pushed together, surprised that she found him in the depths of the building. He had chosen this spot for peace, the table against the back wall, bright lights above him. “Writing my paper. Er, trying to.”

She switches her weight onto her other foot, her backpack slung across one shoulder, paper cup and textbook in hand. “You usually write at your apartment. ‘Cause you’re easily distracted.”

Percy stares at her. She looks sleepy, her hair down around her shoulders and sweatshirt too big again. He wonders why she buys them that way, but it’s cute all the same, he thinks. There’s a flush in her face that he recognizes as a result from the cold weather, her ears red against the warmness of the library.

“Piper and Jason are there,” he hopes that’s enough explanation. They’ve been sucking a lot of face lately and he’s not about to sit in the other room while they do so. He nods to her backpack. “You usually work in the cafe.”

Annabeth looks away, her face reddening even more. “It’s... crowded there.”

Percy decides not to call her out on her lie. It’s Calypso’s usual day to work and he knows that they aren’t friends. “Are you – are you gonna sit?”

She hesitates for a moment, and he wants to ask her when she became so trepid around him, but he’s kinda afraid that he already knows. Annabeth settles into the chair next to his, her hands silently pulling her laptop and books out. There’s a tingling in his fingers at her closeness. It’s the first time they’ve been alone in weeks and it’s uncomfortable. Jesus Christ. He tells himself to get a grip. Percy runs his hands through his hair, not caring when it sticks up. It’s just Annabeth.

It’s just Annabeth and the tension between them and the snarky words they’ve said and the apologies they haven’t said and two cups of coffee.

He steals glances at her as the minutes pass, watching as she brings a pen to tap on her cheek as she concentrates, as she reaches for a sip of her drink, as her finger traces her textbook. It’s awkward and forced and he can’t concentrate. There’s an ink stain on her cheek. Eventually, he can’t take it anymore.

“Beth,” he starts, looking up at her. She meets his eyes, hesitant. Fucking fuck, he thinks. It used to be so easy between them. He misses her friendship and dumb laugh.

“I don’t want to fight,” she sighs, grimacing.

“I don’t either,” he rushes out.

“We can barely talk without arguing.” She looks down at her hands, the pen twirling between her fingers. They’re in the back of the library, alone and lonely. The sound of the pen hitting her textbook is a stuttered tap-tap-tap, unbalanced and frustrated and not them. Or maybe it is. “Do we have to?”

“Argue?” His heart beats in his chest, his hands running through his hair again. Hazy, he remembers. Avoidant and muted and a mirage of what she could be: honest. He’s a bit like that too, he supposes, since he knows what she had meant.

“Talk,” she looks back at him, a melancholic smile on her face.

Annabeth is a runner, he reminds himself. He knows this, and he hates her and loves her for it all the same. But he won’t push her. Percy looks at the ink mark on her cheek, the ink stains on her fingers, blights in their friendship. How did they get here?

“We don’t have to talk,” he says gently. His hand moves on their own accord, it seems, fluidly. He cups her jaw with his hand, his thumb running along her cheek, wiping away the ink. “Not very good with words anyway.”

As his hand pulls from her face, Annabeth’s eyes follow it, a hard look on her face. Percy feels his face get hot, running his hands through his hair again. Annabeth meets his eyes, her face unreadable now, cheeks pink. There’s a determined look in her face that he barely recognizes, her fingers dropping the pen on her textbook.

Annabeth leans forward, her hand reaching towards him. Slowly, her fingers run through his hair, smoothing it down. Her hand lingers for a moment longer than what seems necessary, but he tells himself that it’s just another illusion in her haze.

“Me neither,” she says, voice barely audible, and she’s honest with him.

(As they work in silence, the air begins to clear between them and it feels a little like coming home.)

“Bro,” Beck laughs, clapping his back. “Bro.”

“Bro,” Jason slips on the tile, his eyes wide.

“No running, Grace. Jesus Christ.”

“Sorry, Coach.” Jason grabs Percy’s shoulder and squeezes. “Bro.”

“I can’t – did I really do that?”

“Did you really just – weren’t you the one swimming?”

“Bro,” Percy blinks. He doesn’t know any other words. He should call his mom.

“We tryna die tonight, lads,” Connor yells.

“Please stop excluding non-cis people,” Travis admonishes seriously. “We tryna die tonight, fuckers!”

(He tries to call Annabeth on his way to the Stolls’ apartment, his hands shaking, but he can’t find the words he’d say to her. He hangs up on the second ring.)

“Why didn’t you tell me about your meet?” She asks at their next lecture, face twisted in the way it gets when she feels excluded. She looks exhausted, older and younger all at once. “It was kinda a big deal, wasn’t it?”

“I tried to call,” he sputters out, shocked at her direct approach. It’s unlike her. “You didn’t answer.”

“I called back twice,” Annabeth says slowly. “ You didn’t answer.”

He knows this. “Oh,” he shrugs, looks down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Percy,” she leans towards him. “I know – I know things have been, uh, not the best between us. But you’re still my best friend, okay?” Her green mittens sit on the table between them. “I want to know when good things happen for you.”

You, he wants to tell her all of a sudden. It’s the soft look on her face, as if they could argue for the rest of their lives but at the end of the day, they are friends. You are a good thing that has happened for me.

“Alright,” he says instead, voice thick.

Annabeth smiles at him before she looks away, opening her laptop.

“I’m going running after class,” she tells him an hour later. “Maybe we can go together soon?”

“I’d love that,” Percy answers honestly, grinning at her mittens. “Cute mittens.”

“Green is my favorite color,” she reminds him, blushing.

It’s not – it’s not enough, he knows. He’s been dismissive and snarky and an awful bitch to her. But she smiles at him like a best friend and he thinks, yeah, he does give a fuck.

“I give a fuck,” he blurts out.

“What?” Annabeth stares at him, eyes wide.

“Nevermind,” he struggles to get out, shaking his head, fingers shaking. “Just ignore me.”

She looks at him, her eyes searching his face. He wonders what she’s thinking.

“I do too, you know,” Annabeth finally says. “I give a fuck.”

(He knows she means it differently, a galaxy away, a sun within her own universe, but he can pretend, okay?)

>Piper (1132): he’s a rude dickhead

>Piper (1132): and i don’t wnat him here

>Hazel (1133): wrong gc Piper!!!!

>Frank (1134): damn so that’s the end of our friendship

>Piper (1135): NEVER

He’s starting to recognize her by the green mittens instead of her blonde hair, her familiar form. Percy runs into the training center, face warm despite the bitter cold.

“Hey,” Leo says around his pizza, eyebrows scrunched. “Where’s Annabeth?”

Percy had been wondering that, actually, from the moment his friends arrived at his and Jason’s apartment. Friday nights are reserved for their gatherings. Now that he thinks about it, she hadn’t responded to their group chat earlier in the day. What the fuck ever, he thinks. She’s probably with Luke.

“She’s on a run,” Piper frowns at Leo, throwing a napkin at him. It falls onto the floor in front of him and he steps on it. “Said she might be here later.”

“Uh,” Reyna looks around. “Isn’t it, like, dark out?”

Jason squints at the window like that was a real question. Brickhead, Percy thinks. “Huh,” Jason nods appreciatively. “It gets dark so early now.”

“It’s the end of October,” Nico scowls at Jason, voice sarcastic. “Is it really that surprising?”

“Don’t bully me,” Jason reaches for another slice. Hazel beats him to it, laughing. “Hazel Levesque.”

“Too slow,” Hazel dodges his hands. Jason makes a high-pitched noise in indignation.

“She doesn’t usually run this late.” Percy comments to Piper, eyebrows scrunched.

“She’s probably home by now,” Piper waves her hand at him, dismissive. “With that dickhead.”

“What’s going on with that?” Frank frowns. “Why is he a dickhead?”

“Why isn’t he a dickhead?” Percy mutters to his pizza.

“Fair enough,” Frank laughs.

“Best two out of three,” Jason offers Hazel.

“I always win, Jason,” Hazel reminds him. “It’s not gonna matter if you use the sport bike.”

“That’s the last one with mushrooms,” Jason tosses a controller at her. “I’m not fucking around.”

“Gross,” Leo burps. Nico scowls at him but nods in agreement.

(Hazel wins and Jason grumbles about it and Annabeth sends a text to Piper to say she’s home.)

When she doesn’t show up for their psychology lecture, he texts her and emails her his notes. They’re a mix of his own personal understanding of what their professor is saying and less, you know, actual course material.

It’s not abnormal, he supposes, for her to ignore his text. They’re dancing this weird dance, avoidance and directness and confusion. He’s trying to be her best friend – giving a fuck and showing it. But they haven’t completely moved into their new friendship and he distantly worries that it’ll never be the same between them.

(Percy wants to run from that possibility but he’s a swimmer, not a runner.)

“Start over,” Percy collects Jason’s car keys, pressing the phone closer to his ear. “You’re not making sense.”

“Well,” Hazel laughs nervously. “You know how our resident Wise One went running last night? Turns out she might have, uh, tripped and fell. Hit her head pretty hard, probably, because she’s been vomiting and – and – and she has a headache. Also, there’s a cut on her forehead that looks really gross. Sorry, Annabeth, it does look gross. You should – don’t frown at me , girl, you’re the dumb one here. Klutzy, but I love you. I’m sorry. That was mean. Love you.”

“Hazel,” Percy’s voice is hard. “Focus.”

“I think Annabeth needs to go to the hospital,” Hazel’s voice shakes. “Oh, there she goes – and she’s puking again. Everyone else is in class and I can’t drive and I am not calling the dickhead. He’s already made her cry enough this week – sorry, honey, you know – you know it’s true. Percy. Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly. “On my way.”

(He doesn’t understand. Annabeth is smart and witty and a riot to be around. But she runs at night at the end of October, unafraid and stupid and running from what?)

“So, your girlfriend hit her head last night?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You came to the hospital to tell me that she’s not your girlfriend.”

“What – what? No. I mean, yes. No. She hit her head and she’s been puking and dizzy and… I mean, look at her. She looks... awful.”

“Thanks, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth mumbles from the stretcher, eyes closed and face pale, her first words since Percy gathered her into Jason’s car. His heart skips a beat at how weak she sounds. There’s a dark purple and red gnash on her hairline, swollen and harsh against her blonde hair. He can barely stand to look at it.

“Sorry, Beth,” Percy flinches, hand reaching over to cover hers before he stops himself.

The woman in the white coat stares boredly at Annabeth, her eyes roving over her fetal position form and look of pain. There’s a peacock pin on her lapel and it’s not comforting. She asks Annabeth a hundred questions, poking and prodding and shining a light in her eyes. The doctor asks Annabeth to walk in a straight line with her eyes closed and it’s her failure to do so that hardens the look on the doctor’s face.

Percy helps Annabeth sit back on the stretcher, her eyes closed and face scrunched in pain. He feels useless, like a Tap Tap Fish outside of its aquarium. Running at night, Jesus fucking Christ. He could cry at the way Annabeth leans against him, tired and in pain and her own worst enemy.

The doctor prattles to another staff member, her fingers typing on a computer, before she throws them a sideway glance. “We’ll have to do some x-rays. Any chance you could be pregnant? Are you sexually active?”

“Hate it here,” Annabeth mutters into Percy’s shoulder.

“Me too,” the doctor nods with mock sympathy. “Imagine having patients who can’t answer your basic questions.”

“Yes,” Percy answers for Annabeth, his face hot. He’s not a complete idiot. He knows that Annabeth and Luke – nevermind. Fuck it. No no no. Bad phrasing. He doesn’t wanna think about that while he’s hugging her.

“College kids,” the doctor sighs, her face suddenly serious. “We’re going to run some tests, okay? Bloodwork, CT scans, the whole nine. To make sure it’s just a concussion and not something more serious.”

“I just wanted to clear my head,” Annabeth wraps an arm around Percy’s waist, and he holds her closer, at a loss of what to say. “I’ve never fallen while running before.”

“Well,” the doctor pulls back the curtain, real sympathy this time. “You won’t be running for a long time, Ms. Chase.”

(He helps settle her down into the stretcher again, his own heart running against the situation, and can only watch as she cries, body shaking.)

>Hazel (2003): how is she doing

>Percy (2003): concussion :( she’s staying the night so they can watch her

>Hazel (2004): poor annabeth…... she’s had a rough few weeks

>Percy (2005): yeah i know

>Hazel (2006): no you don’t

Hours pass before Annabeth is brought into a real room, admitted for a concussion and given a hospital gown. Annabeth closes her eyes against a pillow, but he knows that she is awake.

“I’m so mad at you,” she eventually says, blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Percy looks up from his hands, surprised that she is talking. She had been gone for a long time, carted between tests and staff members. He waits, heart thumping.

“I’m so mad at you,” Annabeth repeats, eyes red and face pale and sutured wound. The fluorescent lights make her look angry, though her words are exasperated. “You’ve been pushing me away for weeks and you won’t tell me why –”

There are a thousand reasons but only one matters. “Annabeth–”

“No, Percy,” Annabeth sits straight, and there’s only a curtain and sutures separating them and the rest of the world. “I don’t want you to talk. I want you to listen.”

He waits.

“I can’t run anymore,” Annabeth begins to cry, and he knows that he’s beside her but she’s alone. “I can’t – I can’t think straight. My classes are so stressful. Luke and I are always fighting. Piper and Hazel don’t get it. They don’t get it, but I’m not asking them to. And I love running. There’s nothing to worry about, you know? There’s no one to criticize you or – or your choices. Do you get that? It’s just – it’s running and breathing.”

Percy thinks he can understand. Swimming and breathing. It’s why he’s here, at college on a swim scholarship. There are things he’s trying to swim from.

Annabeth wipes her face. “Now I can’t run for – for a long time. And my best friend can barely talk to me without arguing. I’m not – I’m not asking for things to go back to normal. There’s – there was a shift between us. Weeks ago. Please don’t interrupt, Percy, this is – do you know how lonely I feel?”

Annabeth wipes her face, quick and frustrated. “I don’t know what I did to hurt your feelings. But I don’t think I deserve how you’ve been treating me. You’ve been angry, and I don’t even know why. Is it because I deleted Tap Tap? Or – or because I compared you to Luke? Because I was right? I don’t know. I don’t – I don’t care why. Not really. Because I just miss you, okay? I miss you and your friendship and talking to you. I miss you,” she repeats again, voice soft and sad. “And I feel stupid and lonely and – and I’m scared. I’m scared. But you’re here, so that counts for something, right?”

Annabeth sinks into herself, looking down at her hands, and he wants to apologize for all of it: his dismissal, his stubbornness, his projection. She’s bruised, open and vulnerable and stitched together. October is ending and the sun sets sooner and he misses her too.

“Annabeth,” he tries again, voice strangled.

“Percy,” she laughs through her frustration. It’s not funny. “I don’t wanna hear it, okay? Your – your actions have said enough, don’t you think? I'd – I'd rather be ignored – I'd rather not even talk at all, honestly. I'd rather be ignored than argue with you. Do you really have anything to say that can change how I feel?”

No, he wants to tell her. There’s nothing to say to fix that, no needle and thread to heal the tension between them, though he wants to try.

Annabeth sighs, rubbing her arms in the chilly room. “We’ve never been good with words.”

(He's a swimmer, not a runner, and he stays silent as she falls asleep.)

She’s asleep, the soft beeping of the monitor guiding his own heartbeats. He sees it, her heart rhythm. Green squiggles across a black screen. He doesn’t know what it means, but he sees it, feels it. There’s an IV in her hand, a dripping medication. He pulls his chair closer to her bed, his heart racing each time he catches her eyes move behind her eyelids.

Annabeth looks young, her hair lank and face flushed against the white pillow. The nurses made her change into a hospital gown, but Percy handed her his sweatshirt when they weren’t looking. She had curled herself inside of it, and it is only then that he had understood that the sweatshirts she usually wears aren’t hers. They belong to Luke. He brushes aside the thought, his fingers dancing closer to hers.

Running in the dark, he thinks bitterly. What could she be running from?

It’s late, the darkness of night seeping in through the window and he blinks his eyes to stay awake. The staff come in regularly and move around him. He’s grateful that they never ask him to move, their hands assessing Annabeth without waking her.

There’s a beeping as her heart rate increases, and his own follows. Percy’s hand finally touches hers, her face smooth and fingers warm. He stands, moving closer. Running at night, this smart girl who can be so dense.

Percy leans over her, pulling the blanket higher around her shoulders, brushing her hair off her forehead. She’s so tired, he knows. Annabeth has been tired for weeks.

He brushes his lips to her cheek briefly, because he can and he’s afraid he’ll never get the chance again.

When he sits back down, hands shaking in a fear he can’t name, there’s a brisk knock on the door and the peace is interrupted.

“Annabeth?” Percy hears and his heart rate no longer matches hers.

Luke locks eyes with Percy in the dim light of the monitor and for the first time, Percy knows that he is in the wrong.

“You should have called me,” Luke says, voice low and angry, “the second you took her here.”

“Didn’t have time,” Percy responds, voice quiet and tired, but determined too, despite his lie.

“Bullshit,” Luke seethes. “You fucking asshole. You’re a fucking asshole, Jackson. I had to hear it from Connor fucking Stoll when you didn’t show up for practice.”

“Hazel didn’t want to call you,” Percy stands, stepping closer. He’s pissed as hell, but he’ll be damned if he disrupts her sleep. “I can see why. Aren’t you going to ask what’s wrong with her?”

“I already spoke with the doctor,” Luke takes a step closer, and the scar on his face makes him look like a different man in this light. Percy can’t decide if it’s protective or offensive. “I'm her boyfriend. She has no one else.”

“She has me,” Percy reminds him. “I’ve been here.”

Luke laughs, dark and frustrated and threatening. “Get the fuck out before you earn your own bed here.”

The monitor’s beeping shifts as Annabeth wakes up. It’s a slow process, and Percy watches her face scrunch as she does. No, he wants to tell her. If I leave, will you get some rest? Her eyes open and blink blearily, grey and exhausted and dilated.

She looks at Percy and her eyes soften as recognition dawns on her face. Her hands squeeze the front of his sweatshirt closer to her body.

Annabeth turns to see Luke and Percy finally understands.

“Luke,” she starts to cry, voice shaking and monitor beeping. “I was so scared. Luke.”

“I know,” Luke rushes to sit on the bed beside her, his arms pulling her closer to him, hand on the back of her head. Annabeth shakes as she cries and Percy takes a step back.

His face, Percy thinks. Luke is a different person. His face is kind, understanding, and he looks younger as he presses a kiss to Annabeth’s temple. He makes a shushing noise when a sob wracks her body. He’s in love with her, Percy can see, clear as day.

His heart is in his throat.

“I’m here,” Luke kisses her temple again after a minute, and Annabeth melts against his body, relieved and in love and exhausted. “I love you. It’s gonna be okay.”

“They kept doing these – these tests and I didn’t know – where you were and I was so – so confused.”

“I didn’t know you were here,” Luke brushes her hair back, and Percy takes another step towards the door. “I would have been here. Remember when you broke your ankle two years ago? Hm? I flew home to be with you even though it was finals week. I would have been here if I had known.”

Percy feels, rather than hears, the slight.

“I need you,” Annabeth exhales shakily, her face still pressed into his neck. “To stay, please.”

“I’ll stay, Annabeth,” Luke promises. She relaxes most at this promise, and Percy can see it. “I won’t leave until you want me to.”

He used to think it was black and white, their relationship. Luke had always been a roadblock for Annabeth, manipulative and cunning and a liar. Annabeth had always been permissive for Luke, considerate and defensive and a romantic.

But looking at them now, Percy thinks, he had never once seen them.

They’re in love.

Annabeth loves Luke because he’s always been her person, the one that has been there first, even if he isn’t the most steady choice. She loves him regardless of his faults, not in spite of them. Percy has known this.

What he hasn’t known is the gentle way Luke can be with her, understanding her needs and rubbing her back and calming her down. He’s done this a thousand times, Percy can see. It’s the frequency of it that is the most deceiving: the last time he had done this for her – if Percy had to guess – was a long time ago, back when Annabeth was less confident and sure and secure.

It’s not black and white, Percy sees now. There are a hundred shades of grey between them, a mix of right and wrong and love and animosity and yet – they’re in love.

Luke’s face turns under the monitor’s light and Percy can see that he’s genuinely worried. Percy takes two steps back.

Black and white but grey.

“Love you,” Annabeth mumbles into Luke’s neck, her voice thick and wet. She repeats: “I was so scared without you.”

Luke leans down, his eyelashes wet and eyes closed, and there’s a moment when Annabeth should be able to see Percy clearly, see him standing by the room door with a pale face and beating heart but before she can –

(Percy turns and runs and runs and runs until he finds himself home, the early morning sky offensively grey.)

>Reyna (0634): Annabeth, feel better!

>Nico (0813): ^^^

>Leo (0817): i’ll send u my physics notes

>Frank (0832): annabeth :(

>Piper (0910): i’ll do ur laundry xoxo

The sun is high in the sky by the time he calls his mom.

“It’s Annabeth,” he manages to get out after he calms down. “I’m in love with Annabeth and she’s with this – with Luke.”

He goes on and on, a butterfly stroke and an aching chest, as he tells his mother about the last few months. Percy needs clarity and the lack of shades, but all he sees in the bright sun are mixes of black and white, blurring lines and a shared history he’s just now understanding.

"Was he ever like that? Were there - were there times when he was good?"

"Who?"

"Gabe."

Sally is silent for a beat, then two. "Yeah, sweetheart, there were times like that." She pauses again, and Percy feels twelve years old all over again, wondering when he had to leave swim practice and go home. There’s worry in her voice: “Is Luke really that bad?”

“No,” Percy rushes out. His eyes sting at the truth. “But that’s not the point.”

“No,” Sally agrees, and he can hear his sister crying in the background. “It sounds – it sounds like it’s complicated.”

“It’s black and white,” he tries for the last time, voice desperate, lying to his mother. “He’s a dickhead and she deserves better.”

“Love isn’t black and white,” Sally tells him gently and he wants to go home so badly, but he’s a swimmer, not a runner. “And you should worry more about how you treat her, Percy.”

(Autumn isn’t about preparing for winter, he reminds himself yet again, walking across campus. Red and orange and yellow and green mittens and grey eyes and blue.)

>Percy (1014): hey is annabeth back home?

>Piper (1015): yeah she is

>Percy (1016): think I can come over?

>Piper (1017): yeah

>Piper (1017): Luke’s here jsyk

“Hey,” he says when Luke answers the door. “Can I come in?”

Luke stares at him from Annabeth’s doorway. This isn’t his apartment, Percy knows, but he already feels like he’s crossed enough boundaries in the last – the last couple months, actually. Luke and Annabeth are in love, he reminds himself. What was black and white, what was a clear line – it’s what he had wanted to see, not what was there.

“She’s lying down,” Luke opens the door wider, scowling.

Percy steps around him, ignoring Piper’s gaze from the couch. There’s. He – he feels exposed and settled in a simpler sense. This new position, he thinks, is somewhere between best friend and delusion. Percy knows more now, a puzzle piece he had been ignoring all along.

“Annabeth is in her room,” Piper says, and her voice is gentle. “She has a migraine.”

Percy nods, not trusting himself to talk just yet. What’s there to say? Leaves fall, love isn’t returned, and life goes on. He thinks that he’ll be able to move past this, probably, one day.

“Listen, man,” Luke starts, and Percy meets his eyes. There’s something written across his face, and Percy doesn’t want to run from it. “I need you to take a step back, okay? Annabeth – she deserves a better friend than what you’ve been lately.”

He bites his tongue. This isn’t his fight, he knows. There’s hypocrisy written across Luke’s scarred face, a lie that he believes and – and that Annabeth believes: Luke is always gonna be forgivable. Percy wants to run his mouth, to say what he really thinks, but who would it serve? He’s a swimmer, not a runner.

“I get it, bro,” Percy says instead, ignoring Piper’s stare and the slamming of his own heart. “I’m just gonna see that she’s alright, then leave, okay?”

Luke looks back at him, critical. He nods once before he walks to the kitchen. Percy releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Breathing, he thinks. Swimming and breathing. It’s different from running.

Percy knocks lightly on her bedroom door, opening it to reveal a dark room. Annabeth is curled under a blanket, not unlike how he had last seen her. It’s different in this dark room. There are no monitors to guide his heart, no nurses to ensure that she’s the same, no changing colors.

It’s just Annabeth, asleep, and Percy, afraid to wake her.

He sits at the edge of the bed, and she stirs at the movement. Her face is scrunched again, and he thinks that he has never felt more selfish than in this moment.

They’ve never been good with words. Tap-tap-tap, he dances his fingers against her shoulder. Wake up.

Slowly, her eyes open and she sits up, rubbing her eyes awake. Grey in a dark room, sunbeams trying to seep in through her curtains, the truth in the other room. Flecks of dust dance in the air between them, time and apologies and rejected deniability.

Annabeth meets his eyes, a small smile on her face.

Percy wonders what his own face looks like. He opens his mouth to say something but what is there to say? Leaves fall and love isn’t returned and colors bleed. There’s a rising feeling in his chest, a crowbar nestled under a rib, a burning heat beneath it that he can’t control. The stress of seeing her hurt, seeing her vulnerable and protected by someone other than him – it’s written across his face.

Bloodless, wrecked, contextual: I’m in love with you.

Annabeth sees him.

Her face changes like the season until it settles on realization. Her mouth opens to speak, her hand reaching for him, but he’s already moving. Percy steps back towards the door, disrupting the sunbeam and the dust flecks and the moment. Annabeth stills her movements, and it’s this that makes him turn his back on her, push past his own selfishness, and run.

(He’s a swimmer, not a runner.)

He’s breathing and swimming and breathing and swimming and he tells himself that it’s not the same as running even if the lines have blurred.

Days pass and they’ve never been good with words, but it’s November now and her text said she’d be coming over.

Percy paces, his hands wringing in front of him. He knows, objectively, that he overstepped. He knows. He knows and knows and knows. He saw the look on her face, realization and resignation all at once. She had finally seen him, he thinks, and shakes his head of these thoughts, tendrils of dark hair bouncing against his head.

Annabeth knows. She had watched him leave, had trailed him with her eyes as he walked out of the door, and she had not followed. There was a line between them and Percy crossed it, a single step and a further distance between them. He left her on the other side. At least she has context now, a long overdue explanation, he thinks.

Percy uses his left thumb to massage the palm of his right hand. Circles and circles in his flesh, lines and connections and desire in his hand. His skin is wearing thin, sensitive and sparking and searching. He hopes that his thumb will soothe what his hands itch to do.

He paces.

Large strides, small space. Isn’t that what this is, anyway? Wanting too much? A fire and a burn? There’s a bursting sun between his ribs, a chest wall that is cracking under a pressure he can’t release.

College releases you, Percy remembers. A nestled crowbar under his ribs – star heat pulsing beneath, a smile, and a touch – and it pushes, pushes, pushes until–

He is released because she knows but he does not feel free.

Percy hears her knock, and he takes four steps to the door.

Annabeth is there, suddenly. She is here and not there, and Percy’s hands itch to move on their own accord. Her hair falls around her face, her skin tight around her clenched jaw, and her eyes red. The bruised wound on her forehead is yellowing, old injuries and bitter words. Her irises are grey and sad and she knows.

She steps beside him, inside the apartment and his chest hurts again. A crowbar and a release and sensitive skin. He closes the door behind her, a click and a lock and a space protected. Annabeth takes her right hand, fingers long and nails cut short, and she latches the deadbolt.

Protected space, a best friend, and a released sun.

Annabeth stands in front of him, and he can hear her puffs of air. Short, quick, and timid. He looks down at her, counting her freckles – one, two, three, the fourth above her right eyebrow – and she studies his face back. Percy wonders what she sees.

Wordlessly, she reaches for his right hand, her thumb pressing into the center of his palm. Annabeth rubs her thumb in this spot. Circles and circles in his flesh, lines and connections and desire in his hand.

Annabeth is here, in this space, and she knows.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she shakes her head, quick. Her lips are pressed together, eyebrows furrowed, and she stares at his hand in hers.

They’ve never been good with words.

Percy brings his other hand to her face, holding and gentle and wanting so viscerally to speak but not knowing what to say. What sound does a sun make when it is born?

Annabeth tilts her face into his palm, her eyes closed lightly – eyelashes and a lack of lines – and he wonders what she would say if she spoke. He has never held her like this before, a handful of curls and the feel of her relaxed jaw, and his thumb brushing against the apple of her cheek. He has not done this before, nor has she ever brought his other hand to her hip.

Annabeth is here, in his hands, and she knows.

There is a moment when he thinks they will kiss.

One hand pressing into her hip, the other holding her face, she leans into his touch and he thinks that they will kiss. She takes a step forward, slowly and painfully and the phantom pain of a crowbar. She takes a step towards him, and his hands follow her actions. He presses his palm to the small of her back, his other hand tangling in the hair at the back of her head. Her own hands find purchase around his waist, and she does not kiss him. Annabeth turns her face against his chest, her ear pressed to the very ribcage that was cracked open for her.

Percy holds her, his hands tightening and never wanting to let go. Her breaths are coming in ragged, uneven and unfair. Percy feels a burning in his eyes, a blurring of this protected space. He presses his nose into the top of her head, breathing in curls and lemons and a grey space.

Percy is not cruel and he does not want to hurt her. Even so, he runs his lips against her hairline, his eyes closed, and brow furrowed. He runs his lips back and forth, and her breathing does not still. He feels a wetness on his eyelashes, and he pushes his face into her hair again, breathing.

In, out. Run, swim. Colors, bleed.

Annabeth is here, in his arms, and she knows.

Percy holds her even closer still. He does not look for comfort; he is searching for closeness, for scorch marks and sunburns and licking flames. Annabeth pulls him closer, her hands fisted in his shirt, the small of his back protected by her hands. It’s enough, he realizes, for him to bring his lips back down to her hairline, trailing down to her jaw, his nose tracing her skin.

He wants to know her. Percy drags his lips back up, brushing against her forehead, but never making contact with the healing bruise on her hairline. He tries to open his eyes, tries to see her face, but his vision is unclear and his heart is beating wildly, and her breathing is shaking their bodies. Percy runs his lips across her forehead one last time, settling on a spot that is closest to the center. He wants to know her.

Percy kisses her forehead, soft and gentle and loving and knowing.

Another step over the line, he knows. Annabeth does not still, does not run. Her body is shaking now, and he thinks that if he were to let go – if he were to release her – no. Percy pushes the thought away, he chooses to ignore the possibility that he is her support, that she is unable to stand without his embrace. And yet, she pushes her face even further into his chest and she cries.

Annabeth is here, under his lips, and she is crying and he does not wonder why.

She knows and he knows that she will leave. Percy holds her and she holds him – time moves on. Seconds and minutes and lines pass by them and they stand together. It’s too much, this sun, he realizes. It burns brightest after being snuffed out, and the scars between his ribs, on his palms, on his lips–

Annabeth pulls back, and the moment ends. She releases him, her fingers running across her wet eyes, but he doesn’t want to stop. Percy reaches forward, tucking his hands on either side of her face, thumbs brushing under her eyes. Her lips stretch into a closed smile, guarded and sad and grateful. She will leave, he knows.

Annabeth’s face is red, splotchy, and resigned. Her hands come up to hold his wrists, and her eyes close as his thumbs trace, trace, trace across her cheeks. Her breathing balances, and his heart calms. Her lips are slightly parted, her face slack and relaxed in his hands.

Percy wants to tell her for himself, but he cannot and will not and should not.

Annabeth pulls his hands away, and she holds his wrists between them, a distance and a line. She opens her eyes, and he feels a hollowness in his own chest, a recognition and release. He wonders – again – what she sees when she looks at him.

Annabeth lets go of his hands, and shakily, she reaches for the deadbolt. Percy reaches for the other lock, a twist and a crack in his chest. She steps aside as he opens the door, and he holds it open for her.

As she crosses the threshold, as she leaves, she turns her head to look back over her shoulder, and the tension is back in her face, a clenched jaw and taut skin. She opens her mouth to say something, and he waits for words that never come.

Percy sees her and wonders when Annabeth's chest was torn open, when a burning star sunk into her heart, when her gaze at him began to soften, and why he could not see it before this moment.

(She leaves, but she does not run.)

Chapter 5: surface tension

Summary:

College releases you, catches you, changes you, releases you only to begin again.

Chapter Text

November is here and everything is dark and gloomy but it’s nearing midnight now and Percy is not thinking about the Almost Kiss, the Very Close Hug or the Look on Annabeth’s face as she really saw him. He’s definitely not thinking about it and fuck you for asking.

“Leo,” Piper leans forward, and their professor pauses in his speech to give her a look of exasperation. Percy understands, really. Piper is gonna do what she wants, the lecture be damned. Percy can’t tell if his own exasperation is of defeat or fondness.

“Yes?” Leo throws his head to the side, a curious look in his eye.

“I was thinking about what you said the other day. You know, when we were at Target and you kept playing with the Switch display? For, like, a long time?” A pause. Leo exhales loudly. Percy fights a grin. “I’m assuming you remember. Well. I agree: I think we are attached to our screens too much.”

“That’s not what I said,” Leo fully turns around, their professor sighing at the distraction. “I said, ‘Piper, would it be selfish if I bought Animal Crossing and scammed Jason out of his Switch since he plays it a disgusting amount?’”

Piper shrugs. “Semantics.”

“You know,” Hazel mutters from Leo’s side, her face forward but words loud enough for them to hear. “If you pay attention, you might learn what ‘semantics’ means.”

Percy laughs under his breath, his finger and thumb flicking Piper’s forehead. “McLean.”

A heavy sigh comes from the front of the small classroom and Piper has the grace to whisper.

“Group activities. Outside. Fuck you all.”

(Piper sends images of local parks and nature emojis in the group chat until Reyna sends a screenshot of the weekly forecast.)

>Frank (1328): anyone else get an email from their advisor?

>Annabeth (1331): yeah i’m on my way in for a meeting now

>Frank (1332): oh chill, so it’s nothing bad?

>Leo (1333): think it’s just to check in

>Frank (1334): ohh lol that’s good

>Nico (1335): as if you’d ever get in trouble Frank

“Hey,” Percy can’t stop the surprise in his voice. “You’re in class.”

Annabeth smiles at him wanely, and his eyes avoid the swollen, yet healing, cut on her forehead. Since she returned from the hospital, her migraines had prevented her from coming to class for over a week. With a little laugh, “I’m in class.”

“How are you feeling?” He asks, watching her carefully as she pulls out her laptop. The last time they had been alone sits between them, but he doesn’t care. Percy studies her: she’s wearing a t-shirt and leggings, her face is pink, and she looks pain-free. It’s what matters most, he finds. How she’s doing.

“I’m alright,” Annabeth tilts her head to look at him and for half a second he worries that she’s going to bring it up. “The headaches are better.”

Percy smiles. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says honestly and there’s a weight lifting from his chest.

They don’t have to talk about it, he thinks. She knows and that’s enough for now. The look she had given him, it – it doesn’t matter right now. None of it does, because she’s doing better . Percy doesn’t realize how worried he had been until she begins to speak again.

“I read the notes you sent,” her voice is light, casual. “Are you sure they were your psych notes? They – Percy, did you take any actual notes?”

He laughs and it’s easy, easy, easy. Annabeth is back in class, she knows, and the unbalance isn’t at all what he had feared it would be. It’s just Annabeth and he’s just her best friend. So what if he’s in love with her?

“Which part was your favorite?”

“Oh, I dunno,” she taps a finger to her chin, contemplative. “Every concussion reference,” a grin breaks across her face, and he grins back. “Didn’t know there was gonna be a whole lecture on head injuries. Your notes were very informative.”

“We spent two classes on it, actually,” Percy lies, nodding, opening his own laptop and feigning seriousness. “Tried to convince the TA to let me bring you in. You know. Show and tell. She said no.”

Annabeth laughs, swatting his arm with her hand. “Idiot.”

“Gonna give yourself a headache,” he teases back. “Careful.”

She rolls her eyes, smiling. Her eyes flicker to his hands for a moment. “You know,” Annabeth says, voice quiet as their instructor walks to the front of the classroom. “I never thanked you. For driving me to the hospital. I – a lot happened. But you were there. So, thanks.”

Percy feels his face smile, the sound of their instructor’s voice reaching their table cutting any further conversation. She smiles back, small and warm.

(Fuck the rest, he thinks. Annabeth is smiling, real and painless and in class.)

>Percy (1836): hey guys i need some advice

>Annabeth (1836): don’t go running at night

>Piper (1836): might hit your head

>Hazel (1837): might puke a little on the couch

>Frank (1838): might need a ride to the hospital

>Leo (1839): might ask leo to take perfect notes for physics

>Annabeth (1840): who needs therapy when you have friends like these?

>Jason (1845): percy what do you need advice on

>Percy (1844): i’m not saying shit now. you’re all in a mood

>Piper (1845): might start a convo

>Hazel (1846): might leave u hanging

(Percy silences his phone.)

“I’m just saying,” Piper stands in front of the television, blocking the paused movie. Frank throws a piece of popcorn at her before it tumbles to the ground. Reyna picks it up, blows it off, and pops it in her mouth. “I’d like to spend some qualit–”

“Fucking hell,” Leo sighs.

“Booo,” Annabeth intones from beside Nico.

Nico had grumbled at anyone who tried to sit beside him on the couch earlier in the evening but when Annabeth had walked into Percy and Jason’s apartment, face tired and hands twisting, he had offered to share on the condition that no one ever mention it again. Little prince and princess, Percy thinks, looking at them tangled together on the cushions. They even have their own fucking popcorn bowl.

“Don’t ‘boo’ me, Annabeth,” Piper glowers at her. “This is a direct response to your near death experience.”

“Can you please stop calling it that?” Hazel groans.

“I agree,” Jason scrunches his nose and frowns. “Makes me sad.”

“Let’s just vote Piper off of the island,” Reyna suggests, foot prodding into Percy’s back. He can feel, rather than see, the grin she has on her face.

“I like Piper,” Percy acknowledges, ignoring her glare. “But she does steal my food and roommate and shampoo.”

“That’s a lie,” Piper exclaims, her hand coming to her hair. Hm.

“Lemme smell your hair.”

“What? No. Absolutely not.”

“Then I have no choice but to vote you off the island.”

“Fuck you, Percy. I’m trying to plan a group hike.”

“Some of us can’t go hiking yet,” Annabeth reminds her. Nico hands her the popcorn bowl.

“Inconsiderate,” Frank tsks at Piper. She kicks his foot.

“What can you do, Annabeth?” Hazel asks, head tilted at her roommate.

“Passive exercise,” Percy answers for her. “If any of you had read the email I sent, you’d know.”

“Dude, I thought it was spam,” Leo shrugs. Percy scowls. He had spent two classes researching concussions only to have his findings degraded to fucking spam.

“Go without me,” Annabeth suggests, voice uneven. She waves her hand like it’s not a big deal, but you don’t even have to be in love with her to see that she’d be hurt if they did that, Percy thinks.

“Hell no,” Jason reaches up to squeeze her foot. Her lips twitch in a smile. “We can just go swimming. You can float around.”

“Swimming,” Piper stands taller in front of the TV. “When’s the next open swim?”

“Wednesday night,” Jason tells her, grinning.

“Will there be a lifeguard?” Frank asks, concerned.

“Percy knows CPR,” Nico waves a hand dismissively. “It was in the email.”

He might be a little prince, Percy thinks, but at least he read the email. He shoots a thumbs-up at Nico. It goes ignored.

“No one is going to drown,” Reyna commands.

“Aw, it’ll be so fun to do something together that’s not watching TV,” Hazel brings a hand to her face, happy. “Why didn’t we think of this sooner?”

Piper closes her eyes at this, sitting down on Frank dramatically. “Fuck quality time.”

(Reyna sends them all a calendar invite, and Percy resends the email to Leo.)

“You’re up,” she whispers, grinning down at him.

“Whattimeisit?” He blinks his eyes at the sunlight.

“Early,” Annabeth’s face softens, her eyes flickering to examine him. He probably looks like a troll, if he had to guess. She smiles anyway.

“Nobody drew a dick on my face, did they?” He brings a hand to run across his face, a stubble that he needs to shave prickling at his fingers.

“No,” she shakes her head a little, giggling. “Next time.”

“Next time,” he fluffs the pillow underneath his head.

It feels like it’s gonna happen until it doesn’t. Not really. But it’s the closest they come to talking about it.

“Is it gonna be weird?” Her voice is kind, open, vulnerable. Unsutured, but not bleeding.

Annabeth is laying on his couch, the morning light shining across his living room, their friends still asleep around them. She is looking down at him from the cushion, Nico’s body tucked into her side, her arm trapped beneath him. It’s a sweet sight.

Jokes and swimming plans and movies aside, the previous night had been one of the most important, he thinks. It had been a proper sleepover, throw blankets and pillows and stupid jokes. They were all together, whole and uninjured. Annabeth had smiled at Percy and he had seen a friend. He thinks that she had seen one, too.

Looking at her now, her curly hair hanging off the side of the couch, her face smooth and eyes understanding, he hopes that Annabeth still sees her best friend.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Percy answers honestly. And it doesn’t. He wants to be her friend first. He wants to only be her friend. Semantics. Fuck Piper, Percy thinks. She distracts him too much in class.

“You’re my best friend,” Annabeth reminds him, eyes sleepy and his heart awake: thump, thump, thump. “But I – you are – Percy. I don’t – is that why you were mad at me?”

Reyna stirs beside Percy and they wait for her steady breathing again, a sure sign that she is still asleep.

“No,” he tells Annabeth quietly, her eyes searching his face for the truth. “I – I wasn’t mad at you.”

“But you were angry,” Annabeth acknowledges, brow furrowed. Her cut peeks out from behind her hair at this expression, yellow and greenish and healing. He can see the little black thread that the rude doctor had stitched into her skin.

“How many?” He blurts out. “I never asked but – but it matters. How many stitches?”

Her eyes widen a bit before she blinks. “Nine.”

Percy waits for her to say something, but Hazel stretches and wakes and curses at the sunshine.

(November. Yellow and green and a dissolving black string.)

“I don’t think I can swim that fast,” Percy pants, leaning forward to lean on his knees, lungs expanding for air. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“Not yet,” Coach Hedge mutters.

“Not ever, ” Beckendorf says loudly. “Just try it.”

Percy shakes his limbs out, stepping to the block, energized and alive.

“Think about the rest time,” Coach offers, helpful for once. “Don’t think about the swim. You do x , you get y.”

“Fucking hate algebra,” Percy mutters to himself, dragging his goggles over his eyes and leaning forward.

Beck stands beside the block, face serious. Time and algebra and rest, Percy thinks. He’s just here to swim. The buzzer goes off and he dives in.

“Look,” the assistant coach pulls him aside later, eyes flickering to the head coach in the stands. “Heard you’re doing better. Got a B on your last paper or some shit. Good job, kid. Sorta proud. But if I hear you call me ‘Goat Man’, I will drown you. Understand?”

Holyfuckingshit. Coach Hedge might be a solid ten inches shorter than Percy, but he has no doubts that he’d be underwater and breathless in under ten seconds should the opportunity arise.

“I understand,” Percy clears his throat. “Sir.”

“Good,” Coach Hedge scratches his beard and blinks slowly, his jaw moving side to side. Like. Like a fucking goat. “Check your time. Looks like you’ve earned the weekend off. Don’t tell Grace, he’d be swimming laps like a jealous labrador.”

(His body is on fire, fire, fire, but he grins at the time anyway.)

>Hazel (1236): i really missed sleepovers ily guys

>Jason (1237): me too hazel

>Reyna (1238): so glad that percy and annabeth stopped fighting

>Reyna (1239): they were insufferable and killed the vibe

>Percy (1240): we are both in this group chat

>Reyna (1241): i know

>Reyna (1241): what’s luke’s number i wanna tell him off too

>Piper (1243): can u please!!!

>Annabeth (1244): yeah can u please

>Hazel (1244): 😳😳

>Annabeth (1244): jk jk

>Hazel (1245): 😳😳

Leo paces in front of his couch, he hands moving as he explains a physics concept to Annabeth. Percy lounges on the couch, his fingers scrolling mindlessly through Facebook. He sees a picture of Travis and his girlfriend. Like, love, laugh, hug, sad, angry, wow reactions. Hm. Options. Too many options, not enough light to know which is best. Thumb hovering over his screen, Percy finally settles on the hug reaction.

“Annabeth, are you listening?” Leo stops pacing, looking at her with a look of concern. She’s sitting on the other end of the couch, her physics textbook in her lap and a frown on her face. His voice is softer now, “Do you have a headache?”

“I always have a headache,” she mumbles, eyes tracing across her book. Annabeth is pretty, her hair pulled into a knot and – is she wearing mascara? Percy is too distracted by her hands to tell. She taps a pen on her cheek and Percy stares as it meets her skin. Tap, tap, tap. Fuck.

“We can take a break if you want,” Leo suggests, shrugging. Percy can tell that Leo doesn’t wanna stop, that discussing the surface tension formula or whatever excites him.

“No,” Annabeth looks up, smiling at their friend. “You’re so smart, Leo. I’m just struggling to understand the formula. I feel stupid.”

“Well, I don’t understand any of it,” Percy tells her, grinning. “At least you’re smarter than me.”

“Percy, cut the shit,” Leo sinks onto the couch cushion between them. “You could both understand this. You’re smart in your own ways. Not everyone can be a dual-major like me.”

“I’m not any major,” Percy reminds his friend. College is weird. How the fuck is he supposed to know what he wants to do with his life? He can barely pick a reaction for a Facebook photo. “But, sure, try me. What’s the topic?”

“Surface tension,” Annabeth looks at him, slightly frowning at Percy, like she dislikes his words.

“Okay,” Percy nods. “And I definitely know what that is.”

“Think of a bubble,” Leo grins, happy to teach something to his friends. Percy loves this about him; he’s always willing to explain the intricacies of things. “What makes a bubble?”

“Soap,” Percy answers. Shit, if this is physics, he could totally take it next semester.

“Pressure,” Annabeth corrects him, pen stilling on her face. Percy shrugs. He didn’t have much hope about physics anyway.

“The pressure within the bubble makes it a bubble,” Leo goes on, hands circling in the air in front of him as if he’s creating one. “If the pressure inside the bubble is greater than the pressure on the outside of the bubble…”

“It pops?” Percy guesses.

Annabeth lets out a soft sigh. “That’s what you’d think, right? That bubbles pop from internal pressure?”

“But it’s not true,” Leo wags a finger at him. “High pressure within a bubble is a good thing. It keeps the bubble intact, like it’s charged. If the pressure builds too much on the outside, however–“

“Like a finger poking it,” Annabeth nods at Percy, TA to Professor Valdez.

“Pop,” Percy finishes, understanding.

“See?” Leo laughs, happy. “Surface tension is the balance between the inside and the outside. But that’s the theory, right? Annabeth and I need to calculate the formula.”

Oh, he thinks. He gets it. Sometimes you gotta rely on yourself to keep it all together, like a personalized pressure to protect yourself from the outside. But if the bubble is a vacuum of recycled pressure, then that means–

“Some bubbles should pop,” Percy blurts out. “What if the pressure outside of the bubble is better?”

“Some bubbles do pop,” Leo agrees earnestly. “Surface tension isn’t forever, Percy.”

Annabeth sends him a small smile, and he can’t place it. “You’re smarter than you think, you know.”

“Not as smart as me,” Leo reminds her. “Who is the one teaching you physics? Ignore Waterboy.”

Percy laughs and Annabeth doesn’t.

“It’s good to know theory,” Annabeth teaches Leo now. Percy zones out a little, sensing another descent into academia. “But it’s useless if you can’t apply it practically.”

“Wanna take a bubble bath?” Leo smiles at her, sarcastic and lighthearted.

Annabeth pokes his shoulder and Percy unlocks his phone. Facebook it is, then.

“No,” Annabeth says, and her voice is patient. “Just consider that some tension serves a purpose.”

“A barrier,” Leo agrees. “So pressures don’t mix.”

Percy sees Travis and Katie’s smiling faces, his teammate’s broad grin and his girlfriend’s warm eyes.

“A boundary,” Annabeth says gently, and Percy hears it.

(He changes his reaction from hug to like.)

Frank stretches out across the floor. “So I worried about meeting with my advisor for nothing.”

“Of course you did,” Hazel says kindly. “What’d you decide?”

“Pre-law track,” Frank grins.

“Nice, dude, same,” Jason whistles, leaning forward to fist bump their friend.

“Any news about that internship, Annabeth?” Frank settles back on his elbows, looking up at her. “I forgot to ask you in class today.”

“Oh, yeah,” Annabeth’s face brightens, excited. “I might apply.” Beside her, Luke turns his head to stare incredulously. “It’ll be good networking, and it’s better than an unpaid internship. My advisor gave me the email and–”

“Your schedule is already busy. You won’t have the time,” Luke interrupts, words balanced.

Percy watches as Luke stares around his girlfriend’s living room, searching for someone to agree with him. But Percy hears the clipped tone, hears the intent. His own head looks around the room, seeing the looks on his friends faces and thinks that they might have, too.

When he meets Annabeth’s eyes, Percy sees that maybe she does, too, and that hurts the worst, because she gives Luke a patient, diplomatic smile.

“It’s twenty hours a week,” Annabeth argues, still excited, looking at Frank. “And it’s paid. My advisor even said some days I could work from home or the libr–”

“You don’t need the money,” Luke laughs, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. Percy stares, stares, stares at his hand on her upper arm.

“I’m going to apply,” Percy hears the determination in her voice. “It’s a great opportunity and I have a good chance.”

“Sure,” Luke responds, dropping his arm around her. “You do that.”

“I’m sure you’ll get it,” Hazel encourages gently, eyes flickering to meet Percy’s. He looks away.

“They’d be stupid not to hire you,” Leo chuckles

The tension in the room lessens, but it does not disappear.

The subject changes, the night goes on, but the tension in Percy’s shoulders rises. Time together has not come to a natural ending, but he can’t stand it any longer, standing to leave. Percy is always the first to leave when Luke was around, he knows. But – but, he’s trying.

Percy is trying his fucking best, okay? He just can’t sit there any longer and be the best friend. His feet carry him to the front door and he watches from the corner of his eye as Annabeth peels herself from Luke’s side, as her unreadable expression turns to frustration with each step.

“Early swim?” Annabeth crosses her arms across her chest, voice bitter, and he knows that her anger is not with him. Beyond her shoulder, Luke throws a frown their way. Percy looks away.

“You should apply,” he ignores her tone and words, his own voice soft and supportive. “Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”

“I’m a big girl, Percy. I can make my own decisions,” Annabeth snaps, and Percy wants to ask her, I know, but does he?

“I know,” he says instead, nodding and putting on his sneakers, not wanting to argue. It’s not his fight, he knows. “When you get the job, we can celebrate. Milkshakes and burgers.”

“We’ll get diner food?” Annabeth sounds less harsh, even apologetic. Hopeful.

“Yeah,” he promises, ready to leave and wanting to stay all at once. He lightly punches her shoulder and gives her a smile, ignoring the pain in his ribs over leaving her here, “When you get the job.”

(Empty promises, Percy thinks as he unlocks his apartment door. He can’t always be the one trying.)

A knock wakes him up at an ungodly hour Sunday morning. Annabeth smiles when he answers, still wrapped in his comforter, a croissant in hand as a peace offering for the intrusion. Percy lets her in and splits it with her and wipes the sleep out of his eyes.

She talks and talks and talks about the lightbox studio, how the windows let in the best light on campus, how her blueprints are tucked into her studio locker, hopeful and promising. She tells him about how the lock sticks, how she might just buy a new one. Locks should work, right? They should work and they shouldn’t make her hit the locker with her fist just to get a blueprint, right?

“You’re not saying much,” Annabeth pauses, her elbows resting on his coffee table, her legs crossed on his living room floor. She looks up at him, curious. How did she end up here? Had she texted him beforehand? Percy doesn’t remember, but it’s a good way to spend his Sunday morning regardless. “I should probably shut up.”

“I like listening to you,” Percy says, voice still deep from sleep, wrapping his comforter tighter around his shoulders. “Tell me about your physics project. How’d it go?”

Annabeth’s eyes follow his movement, her face softening. “You like listening to me?”

“Of course I do,” he yawns before he smiles sheepishly. “What did you do it on, again? Surface tension?”

Annabeth meets his eyes and begins to stand. “Surface tension, yeah. Pressure systems.”

“Pressure systems,” he repeats, eyes watering with a suppressed yawn. It’s really early for someone who spent the previous night playing Zelda. Annabeth climbs beside him on the couch, her hands tugging on the blanket. He wraps half of it around her, a warning tone, “Full disclosure. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. You sorta woke me up.”

She folds her legs under her, a small distance between them. Annabeth tugs her corner of the blanket around her, sighing. She’s wearing yoga pants and a large t-shirt and fuzzy socks. Cute and cozy and Sunday morning.

Annabeth smiles, and the distance between them feels shorter than it really is, “Then I’ll do the talking. Since you like listening to me so much.”

“Can you explain the bubble thing again?” Percy lays his head down on the armrest.

“Pressure within a space can create a barrier to the outside,” Annabeth says quietly, her own head resting on the back of the couch, face squished against the cushion and grey eyes sleepy.

“Bubbles make their own protection,” Percy mumbles, eyes heavy, legs stretching out over her lap. She places a hand on his knee and he forces his muscles to relax. “Good for them.”

“Until something pops it,” she says gently, finger poking into his thigh. “Or someone.”

“That was the best part of making bubbles as a kid,” Percy closes his eyes. “When they rise in the air and you race against gravity to pop them.”

“I never liked popping bubbles,” Annabeth whispers to him, voice raspy, palm pressed against his thigh now. Her hand is warm, warm, warm. His mouth tastes like butter from the croissant she had brought him. “I kinda liked watching the light dance on their surfaces.”

He feels it, the heat from her hand. It presses through his sweatpants and through his skin and through his muscle. He feels the heat of her hand on his thigh to his bone. Percy keeps his eyes closed. Annabeth loosens the pressure from his leg, her fingers settling on his knee, but the tension remains.

(It builds and builds and builds even after he falls asleep, her voice explaining the fragility of bubbles like it’s a secret between them.)

Calypso hands him a latte on the house. Percy smiles, a little grateful and a little relieved by her smile.

“Is she still with him?” Calypso leans across the counter, ignoring the customer behind him.

“Yeah,” he answers, taking a sip. It’s too hot and burns his tongue and isn’t that a fucking metaphor?

She looks back at him, face blank. “Is she worth it?”

“Worth what?” he answers.

“You know,” Calypso frowns, her hands moving in front of her awkwardly. “The heartache.”

Percy blinks. He kinda wishes the drink had been hot enough to burn his throat, a deep and blue burn that wouldn’t hurt as much as the truth.

“Annabeth is my best friend,” he tells her, stepping away from the counter, the truth seeping into his bones like a warm palm. “It’s enough.”

Calypso lifts a corner of her mouth and nods. Maybe she understands.

(Maybe she doesn’t.)

It’s November and it rains and rains and rains.

Icy, frigid, brutal but that’s November for you, Percy thinks, pulling his hood over his head and jogging away from the athletic center. The eleventh month is a lonely month. The leaves are past their peak, their oranges and reds and yellows fading into browns and greys and decay. Campus is lined with abandoned tree branches that curve into the overcast sky, beseeching for a gentle winter that will never come.

Percy wipes cold rainwater from his face, bitter cold stinging his eyes. The rain falls as a final warning: soon there will be snow covering the ground, a morning silence, pink sunrises, a biting breeze. The earth will freeze in a casing of water, harsh and cruel. An ice block that won’t melt until a golden sun.

The rain feels like unreturned love.

The sky opens up even more, vulnerable and powerful and unmerciful. Gone are the days of thunder, when the summer heat bit back at the cool clouds with an electricity that he felt on his skin. There’s a pointed resignation about this rain, he thinks, stepping into Annabeth’s apartment building. Descending, slow, purposeful. He takes a moment to watch the droplets as they trickle down the glass, falling and fallen.

What is gravity but a promise of a desolate kiss, November rain water returning to earth as a reminder of past lightning and friction and the threat of lonelier months to come?

Annabeth opens her door, a memory of summer. She smiles wide and laughs when he shakes drops of water towards her. A push against his shoulder, a tug on his sweatshirt. She hugs him because they are best friends. They are best friends, he reminds himself. Annabeth takes his jacket to busy her hands. He wonders when she began to do that, when she began to move her hands against him that way. When did she become restless?

The rain feels like unreturned love.

Percy walks to her couch, the dim later afternoon light washed and morose. November is a lonely month. Her face twists in concentration as she examines the DVD player. She studies it like a puzzle and he smiles at the furrow of her brow. She presses play and he pats the couch cushion next to him, seeing her fuzzy socks and thick sweater and pink nose.

The weather is cruel and she is not in love with him but his chest warms at the sight anyway.

“It’s freezing in here,” Annabeth whispers, her hands rubbing against her own arms, her legs folding underneath her to sit beside him. “The rain takes all of the warmth away.”

Percy smiles softly, “It doesn’t rain like this in California, then?”

“It’s cold for different reasons,” she gives him a half-smile, enigmatic. Annabeth presses closer into herself, the volume of the movie low and forgotten. She meets his gaze, eyelashes and a hard look. He blinks. It feels like nighttime, the sunlight deceiving.

“Come here,” Percy murmurs, heart thumping and thumping and fuck, he thinks, can’t she hear it? He’s in love with her. There’s a gust of wind outside, a spattering of rainwater against the windows. Annabeth looks towards the window at the noise, her face is unreadable.

Wordlessly, she moves closer. Annabeth tucks herself into his side, her legs thrown over his. Percy puts his arm around her shoulders and dares to pull her into his side more. He dares and so does she, tucking her head under his chin. It’s easy, then, for him to press his cheek to the top of her head, for her to grip the front of his shirt. He smells like chlorine and dead leaves and the winter to come, but she inhales and his heart stutters.

“It’s freezing in here,” she whispers after a moment. The rain is a reason to be close. There are other reasons not to be, though he doesn’t want to think of them.

Annabeth is not facing the television, her body sideways on the couch, cheek pressed into his chest. She doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t dare to, his heart beating wildly and the rain not stopping and her breathing slowing. Percy keeps his eyes on the screen, watching but unseeing. She smells like citrus and fabric softener and the best of summer and autumn and – and – maybe winter, he dares to hope.

They haven’t talked about it. He is in love with her and she knows and she does not love him back. The rain falls, cold and a promising freezing point. November is a lonely month.

(The rain feels like unreturned love, but Annabeth huddles closer to him, her lips brushing against his skin and he thinks only of warmth.)

“Disgusting,” Percy tells Jason. He had just wanted to take a shower, not find evidence of Jason’s sex life on his bathroom counter.

“Dude, it’s just a box,” his roommate throws the box back at him.

“It’s an empty box,” Percy scowls, throwing the very empty box of condoms at his roommates head. “I’ll move out.”

“Go ahead,” Piper sighs, kicking her feet up on their coffee table, closing her eyes comfortably. Percy feels his frown deepen at her feet on the table. “Leave your shampoo.”

(Percy spends the night at Leo and Frank’s out of spite.)

The thing about swimming, Percy thinks, is that you and your problems are practically weightless, washed away.

There’s something about the pool that he loves and hates. Percy loves to dive in, to move effortlessly, as if there’s not a barrier of matter between him and the water. It’s how he best thinks, how he best escapes. He loves it for that duality, but there are times he wishes he never learned to swim, when he didn’t need to retreat to laps for clarity.

“Hey,” Reyna nods to him as he leaves the locker room and walks over to his friends. She gives him a wolfish grin. “No jammers?”

“She asked me the exact same thing,” Jason says tonelessly, Piper laughing beside him on the bench. Annabeth giggles from beside Percy and he is Not Looking at her swimsuit.

“Reyna, you’re a lesbian,” Percy reminds her, rolling his eyes. He’s late, he knows, but in his defense, Grover had called him. He and Juniper had taken the next step and Grover needed to tell Percy how absolutely perfect Juniper is, Percy, we went camping.

“Remind me why we had to wait for Percy,” Leo grumbles.

“He knows CPR,” Nico says exasperatedly.

“So do I,” Frank mutters.

“There’s a fucking lifeguard right there,” Leo points to the sleeping woman at the head of the pool. Percy distantly registers her as an upperclassmen from the women’s team. Clara or something. She watches the men’s team from time to time, offering glares at the slow swimmers and scowls at the fast swimmers.

“Oh,” Reyna blinks at the lifeguard, blushing. Leo blinks at Reyna, incredulous.

“I’m gonna cannonball,” Hazel announces, stretching and walking over to the deep end. “Before you drown each other.”

“Is the water cold?” Piper wonders aloud, folding her towel on the bench.

“Let’s find out,” Frank wraps his arms around her. Piper thrashes in his arms, laughing and screeching. Percy glances over at the lifeguard. Still asleep. Whatever, he shrugs, grinning. Frank calls over to Percy for help and he grabs hold of Piper’s feet. She kicks at him, her face red with laughter and voice echoing against the walls. When they toss her into the pool, Percy jumps in after her.

“Dickhead,” Piper laughs, splashing him in the face.

Percy laughs and flips her off, swimming towards Jason and Annabeth, who are wading into the shallow end. Jason dives underwater, effortless and practiced. Percy wonders if he looks that skilled. He reminds himself that he’s on a swim scholarship, that he must have some grace if their college was willing to shell out all of that cash for him to splash around.

“Hey,” he says to Annabeth when he is close enough to stand on the bottom of the pool.

She stands by the ladder, the water coming up to her waist, her hair pulled over a shoulder. Percy is only human, and eighteen, and Annabeth is, well. She’s Annabeth and she’s wearing a bathing suit which is pretty much the least amount of clothing he’s ever seen her in. Sure, he thinks, all of his friends are attractive in their own ways. But Annabeth? Percy is hopeless.

He can feel his face warm, but Annabeth isn’t looking at him. She glances behind him and grins.

“Guess Reyna woke the lifeguard,” she laughs. Percy looks behind him. Reyna’s arms are resting on the edge of the pool, her long black hair floating in the water behind her as she chats up a smiling Clara or Clarissa or whatever the fuck.

“I feel safer already,” Percy says dryly, turning back to see Annabeth’s eyes roam over his body quickly.

Annabeth laughs and decides to step closer to him, the ends of her hair dampening as she gets closer. Percy’s eyes catch the way her hair darkens underwater and thinks that it still looks bright. He swims backwards with each of her steps, encouraging her to come closer to the deep end. “Nico is very worried about me.”

“I am too,” Percy chuckles when her eyes widen when she reaches the drop off. He moves closer to her, inches between them. Her face and top of head are still dry and he wonders what the big deal is. It’s just water, he thinks. Dunk your head under. Annabeth splashes for a second. “Jesus, Annabeth, do you know how to swim?”

“Yes,” she kicks her feet underwater.

Okay, Percy blinks. He’s not, like, an expert on swimming or anything, but. But he’s been a lifeguard for a few years now and – and he’s kinda a good swimmer. So he watches Annabeth’s legs kick at the water and watches as her arms push the water away, and he thinks that she will tire herself out in minutes.

“Come here,” he says gently, waving at her to swim closer to him. Annabeth does so, and he grips her elbows, dragging her closer to the deep end, to him.

“Thanks,” she smiles, shy. “Not used to swimming in pools, I guess. More of a beach girl.”

“I know,” he smiles, his other hand coming to touch the side of her head where her blonde hair isn’t wet, raising an eyebrow. Annabeth blushes. He holds her arms again, guiding her through the water. Her legs hit against his, smooth and warm, and she blushes a deeper pink.

“Sorry,” she looks away, nervous. Annabeth is proud, he knows. It’s unlike her to name her weaknesses. So what if she’s not a strong swimmer? He is.

“It’s alright,” Percy shrugs, finally crossing over into the deep end. “Wanna learn?”

Annabeth blinks at him, her own hands tightening on his biceps. “You really love swimming, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he smiles. Hazel jumps into the pool near them and Annabeth flinches when they get splashed, unused to the temperature of the water. “Let’s just go under, okay? You’ll get used to it.”

Annabeth stops smiling for a second and he can see that she’s contemplating. Her stitches have dissolved, he sees, and wonders if that’s what’s holding her back. “Don’t let go,” she says instead.

One, two, three. Chlorine and escape and clarity.

When he pulls her to the surface, water runs over her eyes, her hair plastered to her face and neck. Percy blinks the water out of his own eyes, uses a hand to push her hair back, his right hand wrapped around her elbow. Annabeth kicks her feet in an effort to stay above water, eyebrows furrowed. Percy pulls her closer, his arm wrapping around her waist. Annabeth hesitates before she wraps an arm around his shoulders. They’re close, close, close.

He’s in love with her and she doesn’t love him back but the water moves against his skin effortlessly.

“What made you choose swimming?” Annabeth asks after a moment passes, her face an inch from his. Their friends are jumping in the pool around them, Reyna is flirting with the lifeguard at the other edge, and Percy can feel Frank’s stare on the back of his neck.

“I didn’t,” he confesses. Annabeth’s bare stomach is pressed against him and her skin is warm, burning against the cool water. “My mom signed me up for lessons when I was in elementary school. She didn’t want me to be at home too much.”

“What do you mean?” Annabeth’s eyebrows furrow and he can count her eyelashes.

Percy uses his arm to push them away from their friends, not wanting the others to hear or stare any more than they already are. So what if there’s little space between them?

“Um,” Percy finally says. Annabeth’s inner thigh brushes against his hip and she blushes again. “My stepdad was an abusive piece of shit, for one.”

“Oh,” Annabeth blinks, blinks, blinks. She tightens her grip around his neck and her face hardens. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I know,” Percy nods, spinning her gently in the water. They’re between the shallow and deep end. It’s deep enough for her feet to kick in the water but shallow enough for him to stand on the pads of his feet.

And he does know that he doesn’t have to tell her. There aren’t many people who do know, actually. He’s pretty tight-lipped about this part of his life. There’s a tightness in his chest when he thinks about most of his childhood. He knows, truly, that Annabeth won’t pressure him to keep talking. He can see the veiled curiosity in her face, yeah, but he sees the concern too.

“My first stepdad,” Percy begins. “His name was Gabe. He… he was awful, Beth. I went to a lot of boarding schools growing up. It took me a while to realize what was happening at home. I don’t think I really understood what was happening until I was in sixth grade, when I got kicked out of Yancy Academy.”

Annabeth’s fingers brush against his head, gently running through his hair. Her eyes search his face and her jaw clenches.

“That’s where I met Grover. But you know that already, right? I was sent home early and swim hadn’t started yet and there wasn’t anywhere for me to go. And I figured it out.”

There’s a sharp pain in his chest at the memory. The water is cool and soothing against his skin and Annabeth’s other hand wraps around his shoulder now, completely trusting him to guide them through the water.

“I wanted to do something,” Percy whispers, and the sounds of their friends drift over to them. He hears Nico laughing and Jason cursing and a splash. “But I was twelve and a screw up and – and useless. But I could swim, I guess, and my mom loved coming to my races.”

Annabeth’s jaw relaxes into a soft smile, her grey eyes lighter. “I’m sure you were good, Percy.”

“I was,” he laughs and it’s joyless. He was good because it was the only outlet he had. “Gabe was gone by the end of the summer. I don’t – I don’t know what happened, really. I don’t know. But he was gone and the school year started and I didn’t have to go to boarding school anymore.”

“And you kept swimming,” Annabeth’s forearm presses against the back of his neck and her smile is kind. She’s floating in the water, his hips practically between her thighs, his hand flat against the small of her back, holding her in place.

“I love it,” Percy tells her, studying the way her hair floats in the water. “I’ve always felt safe here.”

“I can’t swim very well,” Annabeth finally admits, and he can feel her heartbeat despite the water between them. “But I feel safe right now. With you.”

(He spins her and she laughs. The warmness of her bare skin under his hands distracts him from the coolness of the water, the rising tension in the space between them.)

Percy sees them near the library, Luke’s face twisted in frustration, hands moving with his speech. And Annabeth. Annabeth and her set jaw and green mittens and deep frown as she listens.

(Percy takes the long way to class.)

>Mom (1124): Hi, dear. Thanksgiving break is coming up soon. Are you coming home?

>Mom (1124): [image sent]

>Mom (1125): This one misses you!

Percy opens the picture of his sister on his way home from the gym. His heart stutters and revs before it fills, fills, fills with affection.

>Percy (1125): YES

>Percy (1126): I miss her too oh my god :(

>Mom (1127): Can’t wait to see you XO.

It’s lightly raining, freezing and honest.

But the car is warm, and the rain does not touch their bodies. He thinks that the cold rain might be soothing, a reminder that water will always return to the sea, that every thunderstorm has its end, that pressure only builds till it bursts.

“Percy,” he hears her whisper. “Stop the car.”

He pulls the car to the side of a back road, the rain pattering on the windows, the darkness of light creating a cocoon within the vehicle. There’s a streetlight across the road, and its light creates constellations within the raindrops on the windows, an entire universe within the car. The sound of the rain muffles the roar of the nearby highway. There is no one else in this world, he thinks, but them.

Annabeth stares straight ahead, and he thinks that she has lost some of her softness in the shadows of the night, hours after a fight that she did not win. Wounded, he names. Annabeth is wounded.

“Don’t keep driving?” He asks gently. Drive, don’t drive. Name it, he wants to tell her. Name the feeling, what you want me to do, and I will do it.

She had come to his apartment late in the afternoon, face red and eyes wet. Annabeth had been wearing baggy clothes, like she had just rolled out of bed. He had answered the door and she had hesitated, he remembers with a sharp pain, before she outstretched her arms.

“Annabeth,” Percy had exhaled, pulling her close. He did not expect to see her until the next day for class. It had been a long time since she came to his apartment unannounced. “You look like shit, what happened?”

She had chuckled against his chest, unoffended, voice thick. “Thanks, I know I do.”

Percy had led her into his apartment, sat next to her on the couch. He had a sinking feeling that he already knew what – who – could make her feel this way. “What happened?”

Annabeth had sat with her hands in her lap, twisting and turning them. Her hair fell to create curtains around her face. He had stopped himself from pushing her hair back, from overstepping. She looked drained, he realized.

“Campus…” she had started, and Percy could hear the crying in her voice. “It feels so small right now.”

Percy had tried to pull her back to lean on him, but she was already turning to put her face into his shoulder. He had let her cry for a minute, too shocked to say anything else. She had cried in front of him before, but nothing like this. She had never been so open about it. Her shoulder wracked against his body, and he had felt useless, but he had also recognized what she might have been feeling.

“Does campus feel small,” he starts, rubbing her back with small circles, “or do you feel small?”

It had only served to make her cry harder, answering his question. He had known, then, that it was less about what happened, and more about who . He ignored the fire in his veins, the indignation he felt on her behalf, and continued holding her. Percy would hold her for as long as she’d let him, he knew, but she would always let go.

“I need space,” Annabeth finally breathed, face flushed and eyes red. Her red-rimmed eyes made the blue undertones in her irises more noticeable.

“There’s nothing wrong with a little space,” he had told her, wanting to push her hair off of her face with his hand. She had offered him a wet smile that didn’t meet her eyes.

And now, hours after he had taken Jason’s car keys and began driving eastbound, Annabeth asks him to stop driving.

“Let me say something,” she manages to get out, and her voice is strangled.

Annabeth looks down at her hands, and he waits for her to speak. She had not said a single word as he drove, drove, drove, the only noise was the faded music and rain hitting the windows, the only sight the setting sun and grey autumn rain. He knew that she was lost in her own thoughts, deconstructing and constructing her own constellations, a mini universe within herself that required sorting.

She continues: “I’m not taking the job.”

The job. Percy remembers that she wanted to apply to be an assistant at an architectural firm in the nearest town. It was a part-time gig, though more of a paid internship consisting of double-checking the architects’ math and grabbing coffee.

A long minute passes between them.

Sitting in a quiet car within their own universe, Percy feels the air leave his lungs. He knows what she really means, what she’s not saying. Luke convinced her not to take the job – the opportunity – and for what? To serve who? Just because he fucking can and she will listen and succumb to what he says and thinks out of her devotion to him? What’s the fucking point of it all? Percy’s brain spins and spins and spins until: Luke doesn’t need a reason if Annabeth doesn’t want to see the truth behind one.

“What was his reasoning?” Percy asks, voice low, trying to keep his hands still. A car drives by them, and a river of water hits his window, casting dark shadows between them.

She knows what he’s asking. Annabeth continues staring forward, and Percy thinks she looks so tired . He doesn’t want to fight with her, he knows, but he wants her to tell the truth, to be honest with herself.

And she doesn’t deny it, which hurts him even more: “Time. I won’t have time.”

For him.

“I see,” Percy says, because he does. Annabeth waits for Luke to make time for her, but when the opportunity arises for her to do something else with that time – well. It’s simply unacceptable. Her time is reserved for him.

Percy feels the tightening within his chest now, a twisting of a knife that reminds him that he had put there himself. He can’t stand to see her like this, disappointed in her own choices, lost in a relationship that she clings to. But it’s not his decision. He’s just her best friend. Just her best friend.

This isn’t your fight, he chides himself.

“Maybe next semester,” Annabeth says, like it’s rehearsed, and she settles deeper into the passenger seat, bringing her knees up to her chest, head turned to look out of her window.

“Is that what you want, Beth?” He whispers after a moment. Percy has to try, has to let her know that he’s in her corner, that he is supportive.

Annabeth turns her head to look at Percy, and he can see that he made a mistake. Her eyes are stormy, and the harsh orange light from the streetlight gives her face new, sharp angles. “This is my choice,” she seethes.

“That’s my point,” he rushes to say, blood hot. “It’s your choice, not his.”

Annabeth turns her body, and he can see the tiredness in his face but he doesn’t care. She’s giving up and he hates it, hates that this sunshine goblin can take someone down with a single glare but she can’t get a fucking job for herself. “And I’m choosing my relationship.”

“That shouldn’t be a fucking option,” Percy scoffs, because what is she thinking ? It’s the best opportunity she will have until junior year internships and she knows it. “You should be able to get a job without your relationship falling apart over it.”

This isn’t your fight, he chides himself.

Annabeth stares at him in shock, and he can see the anger morphing her already-torn face into a look of rage. He stares back, unafraid of her anger. Why did she come to him if not to talk some sense into her? And then: Annabeth’s face crumples, tears falling, and she puts her face into her hands. “I can’t stand it,” she sobs. “Percy – I ca–”

His heart drops, because he is unafraid of her anger but her hopelessness?

“Hey, it’s okay,” Percy leans over the center console, pulling her closer to him. He smooths her hair down, her face wetting his shoulder. “It’ll be alright.”

He feels so out of place, so unlike himself, what was he thinking by talking to her like that? She came to him for a friend, not another fight. Drive, she asked, and he did and now he worries that he drove her away after working to build the bridge between this past month. The center console digs into his hip, but he doesn’t care. Annabeth holds her hands between their chests and Percy knows that she feels small. Acid rises in his throat when he realizes that he’s partially responsible. To put himself in a box with Luke again – he feels like the worst friend ever. He holds her head close to his shoulder, and curses the small universe within the car for making the distance between them feel impassible.

“Beth,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry. I have no right to talk about him.”

“I can’t stand you being angry with me again,” she finally manages to say, and it brings an onslaught of fresh tears. “Don’t push me away, too.”

He could laugh.

“I couldn’t,” he tells her because hasn’t she learned that he’d be here simply if that’s what she wanted? “You’re my best friend.”

“Can’t you just be my best friend, then?” Her voice is exhausted, and Percy wishes that they weren’t two hours from campus, that he could tuck her into his bed and sleep on the couch. Just to know that she can get some rest, a reprieve. “I’m already torn.”

“I’m here for you,” he reassures her. “I’m not angry with you.”

You didn’t have to fall in love with her, he reminds himself, it’s not her fault she doesn’t love you back. Annabeth needs a friend, that’s all. Percy is just happy to be that for her, though he wishes that she were happier. Not with him, necessarily – he’s not so convinced of his own attributes, especially after making her cry. But she deserves to be supported and understood and happy.

There’s that undertow of fear, too, that creeps into his mind. Percy thinks back to his childhood, of a controlling man, his mother’s expression, nights spent locked in his room. It’s too much to think about – to consider. Percy refuses to go there, to sink to a level so low that Annabeth looks at him like he’s shadowing her brightness. His wishes, wants, and thoughts for his best friend are his, not hers to abide by. Good intentions or not: control is control. Percy shakes his thoughts clear.

“I just needed a little space,” she pulls back, wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. He pulls back into his own seat, puts his seatbelt back on. Small, he thinks. She feels small, the sun in her own universe overshadowed. “I kinda hate him right now.”

Percy doesn’t respond for a moment. What is there to say?

“You need a burger,” he finally says, offering her a warm smile, apologetic, and wanting nothing to be like his dead stepfather, “and a milkshake.”

Annabeth lets out a laugh, and he knows that she’ll be okay, that she’s tougher than he is. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Percy turns the car lights on, pulls back onto the road. “There’s a diner, like, eight exits back towards campus.”

“Start driving then,” she smiles at him, lips closed and eyes crinkled and less sad.

(And he drives, the constellation of rain drops reminding him that water always leaves the sea, that thunderstorms will always happen, and pressure releases only to build again.)

They are in class and he feels her fingers run across the back of his hand, gentle and quick and a charged air. When he looks at her, he sees a best friend.

Piper is breathless, her finger tracing the inside of her own forearm, her face settled into a small smile. She’s beautiful, Percy has known. But she looks different now.

“I think I’m in love,” she tells Hazel, reaching across their kitchen table to steal a bite from her toast.

Food thief, Percy registers from across the kitchen. He spreads peanut butter on his own toast, checks his phone and frowns in the direction of the hallway. Annabeth is running late and he wonders if he should offer to skip class. Percy is infinitely tired, classes and swim practice and the weather weighing down his body.

“Of course you are,” Hazel responds to Piper, knowing.

“Like really in love,” Piper presses on, pressured speech. Percy is almost too sleepy to follow along. “Jason – I love him.”

Annabeth shows up in the doorway of the kitchen, her hands twisted in her own green cardigan. She offers Percy a small smile and he can tell that she is unwell. He hands her a slice of toast and nods at her to take it, not wanting to interrupt Piper and not knowing what to say to the furrowed look on Annabeth’s face.

She mouths a thank you and takes a bite, coming to stand beside him against the counter and not in any real rush to get to class despite the time. Annabeth looks over at her roommates, mindlessly chewing on breakfast. Percy nudges his shoulder into her and she winces. Headache it is, he thinks.

“He’s funny and kind and smart. He doesn’t treat me as – as some airheaded girl with a famous dad. You know?” Piper sits back in her chair and lets out a laugh. “Jason is sweet and challenging. We can go a whole day without talking. Just being there, together. And – and – and when I change my mind about something, he doesn’t belittle me or put me down. He’s curious. He remembers things. He – Jason wants to know me . It’s gonna sound crazy but I feel most myself when I am with him.”

There’s a silence, long and drawn out. Percy’s heart feels strangled in his chest at her words. Piper is beautiful, sure, but in this moment, she is glowing. He’s happy for her, but a part of him feels raw, infantile, vulnerable. He is acutely aware that his love is unreturned and the girl he loves is inches from him.

“Oh,” Hazel finally says, voice reedy. “I – I didn’t know it was like that. I just thought he was a good lay.”

“That too.”

“Jesus,” Percy stops eating. Piper and Hazel laugh.

Piper’s smile is big, big, big. She looks at Percy and Annabeth, her smile faltering for a moment. Piper knows, he realizes. Everyone probably knows.

“I’m happy for you,” he smiles.

“Thanks, Percy,” Piper smiles back, her voice and smile soft.

Annabeth turns, putting her toast on his plate. Her face is white and he wonders how long she’s been in pain without saying anything.

“You okay?” He brings a hand to her elbow. Her eyes flicker to it and he pulls back. “Are you sure you wanna go to class?”

She takes a step back and wraps her sweater around herself tighter. “Can we – let’s just stay here.”

“Okay,” he nods, eyeing their Keurig. “How about I make us some coffee and we can make fun of Jason’s Netflix queue?”

“Hey,” Piper frowns. Percy ignores her.

“Sounds perfect,” Annabeth’s face relaxes, her eyes crinkled and lips closed in a smile. It’s different and he can’t place it.

“We’ll, um,” Hazel stands. “We’ll go. Somewhere.”

“Jason’s,” Piper stands as well. “Roommate swap.”

“You can stay,” Percy’s eyebrows furrow. “I was just kidding about the Netflix thing.”

“Nope,” Hazel waves her hand, moving towards the hallway. “We were gonna leave anyway. I love being the third wheel to Jason and Piper.”

“Bye,” Piper offers a warm smile.

“Bye,” Annabeth frowns, eyebrows pushed together. He feels a pang of sympathy for her. Of all the roommates to have, he thinks, those two would make anyone’s head hurt. He listens as they gather their shoes and coats, hushed voices and giggling.

“Um,” Percy says once the front door shuts. “How do you live with them?”

“Gotta watch what you say, but otherwise it’s fine,” Annabeth nods her head to the living room. “Besides, I’m kinda glad they left.”

“Oh,” he feels his face warm. Percy agrees, of course he fucking does, but it’d be a bit overdone if he said so aloud. Annabeth waits for him to sit on the couch before she settles close to him. He tries not to read into the feel of her arm against his. She grabs the remote and Percy is distracted, distracted, distracted at the comfort he feels beside her.

Her apartment is warm and he’s tired and he leans further into the couch, her body sinking with his. He hears Annabeth make a comment about the show she chooses, but his eyes are heavy and his limbs are relaxed. Percy thinks he agrees with her but time moves like honey.

Annabeth puts her head on his shoulder and the lack of space between them feels different than before. Percy is too exhausted to examine it, to press his lips to her head like he wants, to hope that the pressure he feels in the air is a kind one. His own eyelashes and a flash of gold are all he sees before he’s asleep.

(Percy wakes to a blanket laid over him and Annabeth, to Hazel’s fingers patting his shoulder, to Piper’s sad face. He falls back asleep.)

Annabeth drags her laundry out of the dryer while Percy leans against the folding table. He doesn’t know how, exactly, he got roped into doing her chores with her on his Friday afternoon off but there’s nothing else he really would do. Sure, there’s his ecology lab report to finish, but. But whatever, he thinks. Fuck ecology.

“Are you going home for break?” He asks, crossing his legs in front of him.

Annabeth pauses her movements for a split second. “No, I’m gonna stay here.”

“Oh,” he uncrosses his legs. Percy thinks that there’s an easy explanation: Thanksgiving break might not be long enough to justify a trip back to California. He knows that the real reason lies between her relationship with her dad. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a Sally, he thinks.

“I kinda wanna leave campus, though, you know?” Annabeth lifts the basket to balance on her hip. They make their way to the stairs. He takes the basket from her hands and she smiles. Quietly, “I feel like there’s too much pressure here.”

Percy nods. He thinks about their drive across Long Island, the way the streetlights looked on her sad face.

“Besides,” Annabeth says, contemplative and slowly. “Luke is staying here.”

All the more reason to leave, Percy thinks dryly to himself. Actually, he trips on the last step before her landing. His brain whirs and stops. Hold on a fucking minute.

“Why don’t you come to Manhattan?” He blurts out. “My mom would love you. She – Sally would love you.”

Annabeth whips her head to stare at him, her face blank, her hand on her doorknob. “Oh,” she says, surprised. She looks away, opening the door. “I – I don’t know.”

“Come on,” he carries the basket to her bedroom, Annabeth throwing him a nervous look. “You’ve never been to the city. Imagine all of the buildings.”

“The buildings,” Annabeth repeats sardonically, eyebrow raised.

“You love buildings,” he reminds her, dumping the warm clothes on her bed. Percy is a good friend, yeah, but he’s not gonna fold her laundry. He lays sideways on the bed while she picks up a shirt, her hands moving methodically and her face pensive.

“I do love buildings,” she says softly.

Percy can imagine her in the city, her face brightening at all of the impressive architecture, her hands folded on her lap on the train, her grin at the way New Yorkers talk to each other. He can see her there – in his city – and the thought makes him smile. It’d be like showing her a part of himself. Suddenly, there’s nothing more he wants to do than fold all of her laundry and clean the kitchen and vacuum if it meant she’d spend five days with him in Manhattan.

“Hey,” he says gently, and she looks up from a roll of socks to meet his gaze. He wonders what she sees. “You’d love the city. And you deserve a break. If it doesn’t work out – if – if it’s too uncomfortable for you, then you can always come back to campus. It’s just a train ride away.”

“I don’t think I’d be uncomfortable,” Annabeth tells him, head tilted like she’s confused by his words. “Are you sure your family wouldn’t mind?”

“Are you kidding?” Percy laughs, reaching for his phone. He pulls up his texts with his mother, scrolling to find a picture she had sent. It’s a photo of Estelle with a turkey hat on. His chest swells when he sees it, his sister’s grumpy face and Paul’s glee. “Look at this face.”

“Aw,” Annabeth drops her clothes and grabs his phone. Her face melts as she looks at the photo and Percy’s chest swells for a different reason. “She looks like you.”

“She’s the better kid,” he laughs. “But my parents would love to have you. If you don’t mind sleeping in Stella’s room. There’s a bed in there.”

Annabeth zooms in on the photo, her eyes trailing across the screen and her smile unfading. “Where would she sleep?”

Percy waves her hand. “She’ll probably just sleep between my parents. She’s a cuddle bug,” his face warms at the silly expression. He’s never pretended to be a tough-guy but there’s something about his baby sister that melts any false bravado he has.

Annabeth looks up at him, her face deep in thought. He tries his most convincing argument.

“You love chubby babies,” he reminds her. “And she’s a cuddle bug.”

She grins, wide and accepting and Percy feels weightless, suspended in a bubble. “I do love chubby babies.”

“You’re gonna love her, Beth,” he promises, excited and a little embarrassed about it. Whatever, whatever, whatever. She already knows he’s in love with her. So what if he’s pathetic about it for a second? Annabeth is coming to his home for five days and he can just tell that she’s gonna fit right in.

“I’m sure I will,” Annabeth laughs, real and face pink. She throws a t-shirt in his face. “But now you gotta help me fold.”

(He cleans the kitchen, too. For good measure.)

>Percy (1034): hey can annabeth stay with us for break

>Mom (1042): I don’t see why not. We’d love to meet her.

>Percy (1043): cool thanks

>Mom (1045): Separate rooms, though.

“God,” Percy sighs, closing his eyes and sighing deeply. “Stop eating Piper’s face and let’s go, Grace.”

Jason removes himself from Piper and shrugs, reaching for his coat. For once, Percy thinks, he actually has a valid excuse for leaving movie night early. The last swim practice before break is a double, and neither Jason nor Percy want to know what Coach Hedge would do if they were too tired for drills.

“I’m glad you’re leaving campus for break,” Piper says smugly to Percy. “You won’t be home.”

“Don’t touch my stuff,” Percy reaches forward to flick her forehead. Piper tries to lick his hand, which. Okay. He forgets how weird she can get. He pokes her tongue anyway, laughing when she frowns. “Actually, you know what? Just stay in your apartment.”

“Nope,” Piper leans in to hug Jason for the hundredth time. Gag. “Hazel is staying with Nico and Reyna so I’ll be home alone.”

“And just fuck Annabeth, is that it?” Leo laughs loudly.

“No, Valdez,” Piper rolls her eyes like Leo is telling a weary joke. “Percy talked her into going home with him.”

Leo’s eyebrows rise and Hazel shifts uncomfortably on the couch and Annabeth freezes beside Luke. The tension in the space is palpable, Luke’s angry expression boring into the side of Annabeth’s head, real and unmasked.

“What?” Luke blurts out before he blinks. And just like that, Percy watches in real time, the look of confusion is replaced with a look of indifference.

Annabeth’s own face shifts from horrified before her jaw sets in stubborn expression. Percy recognizes this look: he has seen it beside conviction-laced words, heated debates, and firm opinions. He’s just never seen it directed at Luke.

There’s a spark of satisfaction in his chest at Luke’s response but he pushes that feeling down. It’s wishful, that kind of emotion.

“Alright,” Piper says much too loudly, kissing Jason quickly on the cheek and shoving at his shoulders gently. “We’ll see you two later. Don’t drown. Love you.”

Percy blinks and reaches for the doorknob, stepping out. He turns to Piper, grinning smugly, “Love you.”

“Fuck off,” Piper shoves him into the hallway. She leans against the doorframe, an odd expression on her face. With a pointed look he can’t read, she says, “Behave, won’t you?”

(Her words are weighted, full of a deeper meaning, a souvenir he takes home.)

“So, Annabeth, you’re the reason my son is passing psych,” Sally brushes a hand across Annabeth’s forehead, pushing hair out of her eyes, when they sit at the kitchen table with tea and pumpkin muffins on the first night. They had arrived a couple hours before, but between dinner and Estelle’s nighttime routine, Percy and Annabeth hadn’t had a decent conversation with his parents.

Annabeth blushes at Sally’s gentle touch. If Percy wasn’t currently chewing a too-big bite of muffin, he’d probably defend himself. How he’d defend himself, well – he’s working on it.

“I guess,” she smiles at Sally.

“She is,” Percy gives up defending himself. He nods at the plate of muffins, throwing Paul a raised eyebrow. His stepfather shoots a glance at Sally and seeing that she is distracted by Annabeth, quickly reaches for another. They split it before Sally can look back.

The thing is, Sally would never care if they had more. But it was a joke Paul had made when Percy was fourteen: hey, kiddo, let’s see if we can sneak a half-dozen cookies from the container, whaddaya think, would she notice?

If she did notice, she never let on.

“Annabeth,” Sally sips her tea. “Tell us about the architecture program.”

It’s the right question, Percy puts another muffin on Annabeth’s plate when he sees she’s already finished one. She grins and rips off a piece to eat. Annabeth will talk about her major for hours, he knows. Not that he can say much, though. He’d listen for hours, probably.

Annabeth opens up slowly, her face brightening with each question Paul asks, with each joke Sally makes, with each story Percy brings up. It’s comfortable. His parents are wonderful, and the peace within the kitchen feels natural.

A little bubble in the middle of Manhattan.

“Any thoughts about your major, Percy?” Paul asks when the moon is high in the sky and it’s nearing eleven PM.

“Nah,” Percy shakes his head. College is weird and he still feels like a Tap Tap Fish dancing around a bunch of bubbles in the aquarium, wondering if he’d ever find his own.

“That’s alright,” Annabeth tells him for the hundredth time. “You don’t have to figure it out right now.”

I did figure something out, he wants to tell her. I’m in love with you and you may never love me back. And that’s alright.

“Yeah, well,” Percy feels his mother’s curious eyes on him. He kinda maybe definitely did not tell his mother that he and Annabeth are just friends, that her boyfriend is very much still back at campus. He offers a grateful smile towards Annabeth. Her face is pink and he thinks that she’s had a long day, whatwith meeting his folks and traveling into the city. “College is weird.”

“College is weird,” she agrees, laughing.

Paul reaches for their plates. “You two might be used to late nights,” he stands, bringing the plates to the sink. “But Sally and I are too old to stay up any later.”

“Goodnight,” Sally reaches forward to give Annabeth a hug. The blonde blinks for a moment, surprised, before she leans into the hug. His mom walks around the table to kiss his cheek. “Don’t stay up too late. Annabeth, honey, the room at the end of the hall is all yours.”

“Thank you,” Annabeth nods, eyes wide, earnest. “Thanks for having me. I – I would have just stayed on campus and that’d be fine, really, but it’s nice to leave campus, you know? So – so thank you. For having me.”

“You’re welcome anytime,” Paul tells her, voice kind. He ruffles Percy’s hair. “Night, kiddos.”

“Night,” Percy smiles. He’s missed them.

They leave, the kitchen light shining down on the glossy table. Their tea is long gone, the night stretching on.

“Are they too much?” Percy asks, his voice sounding too loud in the quiet of the kitchen.

“No,” Annabeth whispers as if her very presence is too much. “They’re perfect.”

“I don’t know about that,” Percy looks down at his hands on the table. “But they’re pretty close.”

When he looks back up, Annabeth’s hand reaches across the shiny wood, her fingers closing around his. Fervently, she says, “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Thank you for coming,” he squeezes her fingers. She squeezes back once more before her hand leaves his.

Percy means it. He feels a little exposed, vulnerable. This is his family home. There are pieces of who he is in each room, from the stack of mixing bowls perpetually on the kitchen counter to the specific brand of toothpaste behind the bathroom mirror. Annabeth is gonna see all of it, he knows.

There’s a pressure within this apartment, and he hopes it doesn’t scare her. This is part of me, he wants to tell her. An unlocked phone screen, laying side-by-side in the early September sun. He still doesn’t have any secrets. It feels realer now, more visceral.

(The light of the kitchen light feels warm, like the September sun. He reminds himself that it is November.)

Estelle is wearing corduroy overalls and there are a couple of cheerios stuck to her face and Annabeth is cooing like she’s the cutest creature she’s ever seen.

She’s not wrong, Percy thinks as his sister giggles. Estelle reaches for Annabeth’s hair and tugs gently, curious.

“Oh,” Annabeth’s mouth gapes, unsure of what to do with her hands. They’re sitting on the living room floor together, Percy’s parents off to the store for last-minute groceries. “She’s strong.”

“Stella wants to be held,” Percy sits down beside them, recognizing the frustrated look on his sister’s face. “You can pick her up, you know.”

Annabeth gently untangles her hair from Estelle’s dimpled hand. “I was too small to hold my brothers when they were this little,” she tells him, laughing when Estelle’s fists thrash in frustration. Annabeth reaches forward and brings the baby onto her lap. Immediately, his sister begins to touch Annabeth’s clothes, neck, and face.

“She likes you,” Percy laughs when Estelle babbles, her fingers poking at Annabeth’s nose. The blonde pretends to bite Estelle’s fingers and his sister giggles, her head falling onto Annabeth’s chest.

Jesus Christ, Percy thinks. If he wasn’t hopeless before, he is now.

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?” Annabeth holds Estelle gently, his sister standing on Annabeth’s legs to bounce up and down. She smiles widely at the baby, her eyes crinkled. They’re dancing, he sees, and he’s dying and it’s Day One.

“I’m positive. Paul and Sally love you,” he says, stretching his body across the living room floor. His sister sees him shift and babbles at him. He babbles back and Annabeth laughs when Estelle climbs out of her arms to crawl towards him.

Percy has missed his sister. When she makes her way to him, he blows raspberries on her cheek, grinning when she screeches in response.

“Luke is so mad I’m here,” Annabeth says after a moment. “But I don’t care. He’s just jealous, I think.”

“Jealous?” Percy throws her a confused look. Hm.

He lays on his back, holding Estelle above him, gently bringing her up and down to his face, smacking a kiss on her cheek with each descent. His sister loves this, he knows, her face pink with laughter and chubby hands trying to grab his nose each time she is within reach.

“That it’s not just him anymore,” Annabeth whispers when he sits Estelle on his stomach. She babbles and Annabeth babbles back. Day One, he reminds himself. It’s an endurance race, not a sprint. “I think he wanted me to be miserable with him all break but I don’t want to be miserable. I have more than one friend now.”

“Got two right here,” Percy responds, not knowing what else to say. He removes a cheerio from his sister’s cheek and grins. “This one even comes with a snack.”

“Idiot,” Annabeth chuckles, her face fond.

(He throws the cheerio at her. Forget about returned love. November is a lonely month if you don’t have friends, he thinks.)

He missed these four walls, Percy realizes, his hands thrown behind his head and legs outstretched on his childhood bed.

There’s a whole universe in his childhood bedroom: a Knicks poster, a collection of swimming trophies, a collection of his high school report cards. He didn’t have to hide his report cards while he was in high school: Paul had reviewed his grades with a smile, an encouraging word, a fatherly nod. It’s odd, he knows, to keep his report cards after all this time. But they meant more than B’s and C’s and comments about his polite behavior in class: they meant that he could come home, that he would be accepted and safe.

There’s a shuffling in the hallway, a muffled curse, and lightly, a knock on his bedroom door.

“Hey,” Annabeth whispers, hair wild about her face, her phone flashlight between them, illuminating her face. She throws a worried glance down the hall towards his parents room and he grins. “Let me in, doofus.”

“Sure,” he rolls his eyes, letting her in and closing the door behind her. “I’m the doofus.”

“Happy you agree,” she sets her phone down on his bed, settling on the comforter, her back leaning against a blue wall. He recognizes the sweatshirt she’s wearing as the one he had given her a month prior, when she could barely look at him from the stretcher in the hospital. It’s been a whirlwind month, he thinks. College releases you, catches you, changes you, releases you only to begin again. A month and a different friendship and the same sweatshirt.

“This is mine,” he tugs on the end of the hoodie with a hand, climbing to sit on the bed beside her. “Did you come here to raid my closet?”

In the light of her flashlight, she grins down at her hands. He could turn on his bedside lamp, he knows, but he likes the secrecy of the moment. Sneaking into his room in the middle of the night, whispering and teasing and his hoodie. Who’s the secret from?

“Maybe,” Annabeth grins back at him, and now that he thinks about it, Percy doesn’t think he’s ever had a girl in his room before. “Maybe I came to give it back.”

“Nah, you didn't,” he leans forward to poke her nose. She giggles, nodding and grabbing his hand. “Keep it.”

Annabeth holds his hand between them, her smile fading, but not disappearing, eyes downcast. The light from her flashlight casts a shadow across her face, and he wants to show her his report cards. Look, he’d say, C’s, mostly, but understanding, too.

“Wanna talk about it?” Percy asks gently, giving her hand a squeeze and offering a smile. “What you’re thinking about, I mean.”

Annabeth doesn’t let go of his hand, and he tells himself that it’s just friendship, the light in the room focusing and deceiving all at once.

“You have a wonderful family, Percy,” Annabeth squeezes his fingers and he squeezes back. She smells like this home, he notices, fabric softener and vanilla. “Paul is so, so kind. And Estelle. God, that baby.” Annabeth smiles again, soft and loving and past midnight.

“Your mom,” she whispers, looking at him now. “She’s… Sally’s amazing. I know you said – you said that things weren’t always good at home, growing up. But you – you love your mom.”

“She’s my mom,” Percy says carefully, confused. “Of course I do.”

A beat passes.

“But aren’t you angry?” Annabeth lets go of his hand, sliding closer to him, her face brightened by the flashlight. Her eyebrows are furrowed, lips pursed; perplexed. Annabeth shuffles anxiously until her arm touches his, side by side and calm. She repeats, “Aren’t you angry?”

It surprises him a little, this topic. Years and years had gone by, the only ones needing to know already knowing, but she’s knows now, too. Cigarette smoke, lingering hours at the Y, and poker chips strewn across the dining room floor.

“I was,” he admits, reaching for her hand again and bringing it to his lap. Annabeth lets him turn her hand over and over again in his. His thumb brushes against her palm and her head rests on his shoulder. “Until I woke up and I wasn’t mad anymore. She’s – she’s my mom, and she didn’t have a lot of choices. Took me a long time to see that.”

“I’ve been angry for so long,” Annabeth whispers after a moment, and it’s a secret. “At my mom, I mean. She left when I was Stella’s age and just… didn’t come home. She didn’t come back for me, and I don’t know when I realized she never would, but I think I was the same way? Maybe? Like, I woke up and knew that she wasn’t coming home. That I was stuck with my dad and stepmom and – and – left behind. And she had a choice.”

Her voice is so quiet, he thinks. Percy presses his cheek to the top of her head. Side by side, two best friends. He lays his palm face up on his thigh, her hand passively resting in his.

“I can’t be angry at my mom, anymore, though. Not really. She didn’t want a kid, she wanted to go back to Greece alone. You can’t be mad at someone you barely know. But – but I know my dad and he could have done better. He could have done better and I am so – so hurt over it.” A moment passes. “I love your family,” Annabeth’s fingers trace his open palm, circling and hazy. “They make me feel like I have a choice.”

“A choice?”

“To not be angry,” she dances her fingers along his wrist. Her voices hitches, “I – I always thought I had to be pissed at him. My dad. I thought that I’d never forgive him. When I left for college,” Annabeth’s hand settles on his, frozen, “my dad cried.”

Percy hums in understanding, slightly rubbing his cheek into her hair. She smells like his shampoo.

“Luke says I shouldn’t care ‘cause my dad had his chance. But – he cried, like – like he’d miss me,” Annabeth’s voice shakes. “Should I – do I always have to wait for him to call?”

“I don’t know,” Percy tells her honestly. “Do you want to call him?”

“Yeah,” Annabeth finally answers, voice thick, her hand brought to her face. “Because I miss him.”

She turns her head into his shoulder and he’s already moving, his arm wrapping around her shoulders. Carefully, she throws her legs over his lap sideways, her face pressing into his shirt and hands folding between them. His hoodie and his shampoo and his report cards on the desk. Percy lowers his arm to her waist and it’s when she begins to sniffle that he presses his lips into her hairline again.

“Percy...” she warns shakily and he hears what she means.

They haven’t spoken about it, the line they had nearly crossed a month prior, a recognition of his feelings for her, a physicality previously unexplored. He had pushed and she had met him halfway, but in the end, she had left and he had understood. The memory is always there, sitting between them like two folded hands. And he thinks he understands, really: she doesn’t want to lose his friendship with more physical touch. Percy doesn’t want to betray the closeness he feels with her, and she’s warning him not to, but he isn’t going anywhere. He won’t leave because he’s in love with her.

Yeah, he wants to tell her. I’m in love with you, but, more importantly, you’re my best friend, too, so I’m gonna hug you when you cry.

“It’s alright,” he says into her hair instead, hoping she understands.

Annabeth relaxes, her breathing steadying and melting into him. The light from her flashlight is just as bright, and there’s a lack of secrecy between them. His parents and sister are asleep down the hall, the city awake and alive and loud outside, and he’s missed these four walls.

A few minutes at most, he thinks. It’s all she allowed for herself, and he wonders if it’s enough. A few minutes, but she doesn’t move an inch and Percy keeps his arm around her waist, fingers wrapped around his own hoodie. His lips are still at her hairline, and he presses them down once, balancing a border they both know is there.

Annabeth begins to pull away, and he’s worried that he’s pushed too far. She reaches behind her, unlocking her phone, shutting off the flashlight. He hears her stand, hears her set her phone down on his desk right beside his high school report cards. Percy blinks at the sudden darkness before he finds her silhouette against the orange light of the city, standing in front of his twin size bed. He watches in the dark as she reaches for his hand again, as she tugs at the comforter at the head of the bed, unable to pull it back completely due to his position.

“Let me in, doofus,” she whispers, but the playfulness is gone, replaced by a quiet tone he hasn’t heard before.

Percy moves, climbing under the blanket, back pressed against the wall. He waits, heart beating and breath heavy and secretless. Annabeth settles in next to him, face to face. It’s just the memory of the city lights that illuminate her face now, and he sees a healed wound and the look from a month ago.

“I’m the doofus,” he laughs quietly, and his throat threatens to close. If there’s a boundary and she doesn’t guard it, what’s stopping them? Percy doesn’t think about it. He reaches forward, his hand finding her waist again, settling it there. Annabeth shuffles even closer, tucking her head under his chin, each move intentional.

“Happy you agree,” she mumbles into his neck, close and comfortable, and he knows she can feel his pulse on her lips.

(He can feel her heartbeat through his hoodie, steady and quick and a choice. A whole universe in his childhood bedroom, he thinks before he falls asleep, and a boundary crossed for one night.)

He’s helping his mother put away the breakfast dishes the morning of Thanksgiving when she looks towards the living room.

“Percy,” she wipes her hands on a dish towel. Her voice is hushed, and his stomach drops at the severity in her tone. “We have to talk, I think.”

His mind swirls wildly, hands freezing midair. There’s a thousand different scenarios he can think of right now that would require the seriousness in her face. None of them are good and he feels nauseous.

“Oh, no, honey,” Sally shakes her head, grabbing the bowl from his hand and placing it on the counter. “It’s nothing bad, I promise.”

“Okay,” Percy says, his heart thumping through his throat. He misses home, it’s true, but home can be interwoven with fear, too.

“It’s just,” Sally looks back towards the living room and frowns.

Paul and Estelle and Annabeth are in the living room, he knows, watching the Parade. They might not really celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday but Annabeth has never seen the Parade. Percy had turned it on and told her that he’d clean the kitchen with his mom so she wouldn’t feel guilty leaving the chores to him.

“Honey,” Sally whispers, voice hushed, face serious and Percy’s heart is beating like a racehorse, probably, though he has no real understanding behind that phrase. “I saw Annabeth’s bed was empty this morning. Do we need to have the sex talk again?”

“JesusfuckingChrist,” Percy exclaims loudly before his mind catches up with his audience.

“Hey!” Paul yells from the living room. He can hear Annabeth giggling and Estelle babbling.

“Perseus,” Sally scolds.

“No, god,” Percy wants to die. “No, no, no.”

Not again, he thinks.

“Okay,” Sally puts her hands up and chuckles. “Just checking in. If it’s easier to have this talk with Paul–”

“No.”

“I’m just saying that we are here if you have any quest–”

“No.”

“Percy, please,” Sally laughs, real and genuine and he wonders if Annabeth can hear any of this. She probably can’t, he knows, but her proximity makes him want to scream. His mother is ruthless. Christ, and on a national holiday, too.

“If I have any – any – questions, ” Percy sputters out, lying through his teeth, wanting to disintegrate on a Thursday morning. “Then I’ll – I’ll ask Paul.”

That satisfies his mother, her shoulders relaxing and face softening. “Okay. Okay. Good. That’s good, honey.”

“It’s great,” he says, voice incredulous still.

“Finish up here,” she gestures to the dishes in the dish rack. There’s an amused look on her face and Percy regrets being born. His mom opens her mouth to say something more before she closes it, a thoughtful look on her face. She pats his cheek before she leaves the kitchen. Maybe she’s not so ruthless.

“What was the swearing about earlier?” Annabeth asks him later, when they’re setting the table for dinner. She’s beautiful in an orange sweater, her face bright and lips spread into a smile. “Your mom came into the living room laughing about something.”

(JesusfuckingChrist.)

Their third night in New York finds Annabeth knocking softly, his door opening slowly, her head peering into his room cautiously. She looks like an owl, nervous and eyes wide and perceptive. They make eye contact and she grins, no longer apprehensive. Annabeth closes the door behind her, leaning against it with a smile.

His heart beats and beats and beats something wild, his arm curled under his head. He can feel his pulse through his wrist, tucked under his ear. Thump, thump, thump. She’s here. And – he squints in the orange-hued dark to see – she’s wearing the hoodie he had thought he misplaced earlier in the day.

“Back to steal more clothes?” He smirks, voice quiet and eyebrow raised.

Annabeth doesn’t even blush, her lips pulling into a matching smirk and her shoulder shrugging.

Percy remembers the morning, Annabeth’s body stretching beside his, her hair messy and smile soft. She had looked sweet, her face resting on her hands as she watched him wake.

“I missed our sleepovers,” she had said when he pulled her under his chin. “Not just with everyone else, but. But the ones where we were okay. When it wasn’t awkward.”

“Is it awkward now?” He had asked, voice deep and raspy and eyes closing again. She had been warm, cozy, her hand around his waist and lips pressed to his shirt. A lack of boundary, little space between them, a rising tension he couldn’t name.

“Not at all,” Annabeth had murmured into his shirt. “This is nice.”

Percy had told himself not to read into it. Boundaries and surface tension and barriers. He had fallen back asleep, her breathing a steady rhythm to hold onto.

Now, Annabeth’s chin gestures to his bed. “Let me in, doofus.”

He pulls back the blanket, his hand wraps around her waist when she presses her back to his chest, and his face presses into her hair.

“This is nice,” he finally agrees with her. Annabeth hums in agreement, her shoulders relaxing and body wiggling even closer to him.

“Goodnight, Percy,” Annabeth whispers.

In the dark, miles from campus and a boyfriend, a rising pressure. It’s unsustainable, he knows.

(Something’s gotta give.)

Annabeth asks to go to the Woolworth Building and the Empire State Building and the Flatiron Building but he draws the line at the Manhattan Municipal Building.

“Beth. Wait, wait, wait. Fuck, aren’t you cold?” Percy asks her incredulously when she tells him their next stop. He regrets handing her a subway map at this moment.

Annabeth stares back, her curls tucked under a red beanie and green mittens on her hands. It’s frigid outside and the cold has been biting at his face for hours now. Sure, he thinks, she’s pretty and excited and a riot to be around but he might actually, like, freeze if he doesn’t get indoors soon.

“A little,” she finally responds, suddenly shy. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be annoying. I’m just excited to see the city.”

“I know,” Percy’s hand reaches for one of her mittened ones. Sue him. It’s cold. “But let’s take a break, okay? We can grab some lunch and defrost. Then we’ll go uptown to see more. There’s a lot I want to show you.”

“Oh,” Annabeth’s cautious face breaks into a smile, her hand squeezing his. “That sounds great, actually.”

Percy leads her down the sidewalk, hand in hand and it only burns a little. When a rush of people pass them, Annabeth leans back into his chest, his hand finding her waist. He tells himself that it’s alright. The crowded streets make him feel like it’s just them in the city.

The crowds of New York are different from the crowds on campus. The cobblestone quad and brick buildings and tall trees of campus feel limiting. There’s a restriction there that Percy hadn’t realized, a spark of tension between them that has only increased since leaving.

And – and that’s it, isn’t it? The past month has been a build-up of something between them. He doesn’t want to read into it, doesn’t want to see the possibility of a fractured friendship. It’s easier to press a hand lower into her hip as a man in a wool coat shuffles too close to them, her back pressed to his chest in broad daylight now.

A moment later, Annabeth sees a cafe and turns to him, her nose pink and eyes bright. She’s here – in New York – with him and she’s smiling and he’s in love with her. He throws an arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer before they cross the street. Just as the road clears, as the crowd disperses and a freezing breeze cuts through his coat, Annabeth’s arm wraps around his waist.

It’s cold and she’s warm and the air between them shifts, shifts, shifts.

(The sharp air of the city has lifted any illusion he previously had: the lines are blurring and the surface tension is increasing and Percy doesn’t know if a bubble is going to pop by the end of it all.)

Annabeth opens his bedroom door slowly, her face appearing with a sheepish smile and hair knotted on top of her head. She pads across the carpet to him, her sheepish smile turning into a reserved look.

“Hiya,” Percy whispers, smiling.

“Let me in, doofus,” she whispers and he chuckles lowly at the playful look on her face.

Percy moves to give her room, unsurprised by her visit. She hasn’t slept in her bed since the first night, her knocks morphing into a turning doorknob, her shyness turning into confidence. It’s not like he’s going to say no, okay? Annabeth is soft and sweet and sleepy. The air is heavier at night, her back pressed to his chest, the twin size mattress and orange streetlight an unexplored warmth between them.

Annabeth climbs in beside him, her head laying on his shoulder and his arm holding her close, close, close. It’s easy. It’s easy and her hand rests on his chest and he presses his lips to her hair, a lack of pressure and boundary but a suggestion. Her breathing settles after a moment, his own heartbeat thumping against his ribs. He brings his other hand to his chest, inches from her own.

Wordlessly, Annabeth reaches for his hand. He can feel her heartbeat against him. She traces her fingers along his palm, her eyelashes moving slowly as she blinks at her own action. Dancing, dancing, dancing. Where’s the border? Annabeth’s palm presses into his and he feels it. There’s a weight between them, a built pressure that he thinks will surely release. He wonders if she can feel it too.

Her breathing becomes uneven as the minutes pass, her touch becoming lighter and firmer with each passing minute. Push, pull. Hands pressed together.

“It isn’t right,” she whispers against his shirt, quiet and raw.

His heart skips and he freezes and he knows she can feel it. She’s right, he thinks. Annabeth is in love with Luke and this is wrong. He’s misread the space between them, misread her friendship for a hint of something more. Percy’s arm loosens around his shoulder, a mild panic rising behind his ribs. This is wrong, he knows. She’s not in love with him, no matter how close they are in this moment.

“Annabeth,” Percy whispers, and he can hear the pressure in his own speech, a tension between his ribs that struggles to leave his throat. The bubble they’ve been in feels threatened by her simple statement, his strangled voice, and racing heart. Wrong, wrong, wrong, even if it feels right. Percy begins to pull his hand from hers.

Her fingers press into his wrist, stopping his retreat, and for a second, he feels like she might pull him back. It feels like a blessing and a curse, her hand on his hand and her heart beating along his.

“Annabeth,” Percy repeats, still a pained whisper in the orange light of his childhood bedroom. He can barely recognize the gentleness in his voice. “If nothing else, you are my best friend. And it’s enough for me.”

Annabeth’s own body stills against him, her breath caught and heart stuttering.

A minute passes between them and he wonders what is going through her mind. The space between their bodies feels unearned and impermissible in response to her words, and has their closeness and comfort ruined their friendship?

She lifts herself onto her elbow and the new distance between them feels cold, cold, cold without her filling it. Annabeth looks at him, her hand still pressed to his. Her eyes are stony, her lips parted and eyebrows furrowed as she studies his face. Percy doesn’t recognize the look on her face, the way her mouth moves to speak but nothing said. Finally:

“I’m not in love with Luke anymore,” Annabeth whispers, her eyes searching his face. His heart races and he watches her lips move. “I don’t think I have been for a long time. I – I think I just realized that. And it’s not right.”

“What do you need from me right now?” Percy whispers back, thoughts racing and fingers tingling and chest burning.

“I need my best friend,” Annabeth smiles down at him, sad and genuine and warm.

“Come here,” Percy says gently, his arm tightening around his shoulders again. He meant it. It is enough to be her best friend.

Annabeth lays back down, her cheek pressed to his chest, her breathing uneven and heart racing. She does not cry. Her hand is still in his, his thumb running along her knuckles in time with his breathing. He holds her, kissing the top of her head and pressing his face into her hair.

The tension between them is at an all time high, a force that protects the space between them instead of crushing it. The pressure within is enough to keep the bubble intact, he remembers. It’s physics, he thinks, that settles her breathing and guides her to sleep and allows her to sleep beside him.

Percy thinks of Luke, a thirty minute train ride away, a girlfriend no longer in love with him. He wonders what the tension is like between them: is it anything like the charged air, the shifting space and hushed whispers between Percy and Annabeth? The bubble around them, the change in pressure? The comfort and closeness?

Percy thinks of Luke and Annabeth and knows that the bubble around them has been long collapsed. It’s why she’s here, he realizes, her sleeping breaths puffing against his neck, in his arms.

A different kind of space, a release and distance from Luke, and less of a barrier between her and Percy.

(It’s simple physics, he thinks as his eyes get heavy and heart lighter. Boundaries and tension and bubbles exist so pressures don’t mix.)

Chapter 6: shades of blue

Summary:

Change happens when the snow kisses your face, he thinks. A cold, melting touch which reminds him that love is just as capable of warmth, a hue of cool blue, a burning pink cheek. Snow falls and the leaves are forgotten and Percy believes that the chill in his bones is a reminder that spring will come.

Chapter Text

The end of November brings falling snow.

The early mornings are dark blue before a light pink. Heavy tufts of snow descend upon campus, their rounded edges reflecting the last of the early morning moon and melting on Percy’s face. Freezing and weighted and then cooling and awakening.

This is how he greets December:

The cobblestones are covered under a melting blanket, autumn’s last fight to stay and winter’s first battle to win. The snow falls, falls, falls and Percy walks, walks, walks. The December freeze brings a sharp memory of the bright August sun. Practice will begin soon and each crunching step reminds him that seasons and love and people change.

Change happens when the snow kisses your face, he thinks. A cold, melting touch which reminds him that love is just as capable of warmth, a hue of cool blue, a burning pink cheek. Snow falls and the leaves are forgotten and Percy believes that the chill in his bones is a reminder that spring will come.

Colors, seasons, feelings. It’s all the same, he thinks. It’s all the same.

(For now, he reminds himself as the sun reflects on an untouched field of white, he will find warmth in the blues.)

>Reyna (1123): hey did you bring any Sally Jackson Baked Goods back

>Percy (1124): oh shit i forgot i’m sorry

>Reyna (1125): delete my number <3

>Reyna (1126): actually can you send me your mom’s number first

>Percy (1126): Who is this?

Jason reaches across the broken blinds with a hammer and fairy lights, his face screwed in concentration and nail between his teeth.

“Gonna do it,” he mumbles around the nail, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“Do it,” Percy drones on with dry encouragement, his hands behind his head as he watches boredly from Jason’s bed. “Be festive.”

“Gotta be,” Jason glares as he reaches up, nail now between his fingers. “Got my non-denominational winter decorations.”

“You can just say Christmas lights,” Percy laughs before his eyes narrow in on Jason’s sweatpants. There’s a stain on the side pocket that Percy recognizes from his last lunch with Grover. Red enchilada sauce that now looks like the state of Massachusetts. “Are those my sweats?”

Jason freezes, hammer inches from the nail, suspended with a blank look on his face. “Eyes up here, Jackson.”

“You dickhead,” Percy frowns. “Those are my Massachusetts sweatpants. I specifically asked if you’d seen them.”

“And I hadn’t,” Jason resumes tapping the nail with a hammer. “Till this morning when they were folded neatly in my drawer.”

“Folded neatly,” Percy repeats dryly.

“Grinch,” Jason mutters under his breath which. Which is fucking rude, Percy thinks, for someone who stole his favorite otherwise non-descript pair of grey sweatpants with the stain of Massachusetts and enchilada sauce and friendship.

“That hurt my feelings,” Percy says when Jason steps back to admire his work. “I’m very festive. And giving. I’m giving you my attention right now actually.”

“And I’m blessed for that,” Jason gives him an exasperated look. “Grateful, really.”

“I woke you up for practice today,” Percy sits up and scowls. “Remember when you used to do that for me?”

“Yes,” his roommate reaches up to adjust the lights before he steps back and smiles. Percy’s frown deepens.

“I also made you a bagel this morning,” Percy mutters as Jason plugs the lights into the electrical socket. It feels important to mention.

Jason sighs and turns to frown at Percy, his arms crossed and white lights highlighting the scar on his lip. “What’s wrong, bro?”

“Nothing.”

“You haven’t left me alone in two days and you’re sensitive.”

“You haven’t left me alone and you are sensitive,” Percy blurts out childishly. Fuck it.

Jason stares at him and Percy wonders when he’s gonna ask. Annabeth and Percy had arrived back to campus with a quiet understanding between them that was indecipherable even to the both of them. Between the unspoken avoidance and small smiles in public, they had not demonstrated the same level of comfort as they had before leaving for the city.

What was there to say? Hey, you said you weren’t in love with your boyfriend and I’m in love with you and when I see you all I can see is the look of peace on your face when you sleep and the way your hand fit into mine when we saw the whole city together and also, how was your day?

Finally, “Should I call Grover?”

And that’s. That’s just the kind of brickhead statement that Percy didn’t expect Jason to make. Fuck. Fuck.

“Um,” Percy blinks and swallows his own heart. “Um.”

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Jason nods, putting down the hammer and scattering to his backpack. Percy watches numbly as Jason opens his laptop, his eyes flickering to check on Percy every few moments. Weird. Jason is blurring and Percy’s fingers are tingling.

The skype call trills and Jason stands and Grover begins to speak.

“Jason?” Percy’s bestest friend in the entire world begins to speak. Jason sets his laptop on his bed in front of Percy. “Oh, Percy. Ohmygodwhat’swrongwhatdidJasondo.”

“Um,” Percy blinks and his face feels hot. “He stole my sweatpants.”

Jason rolls his eyes as he walks to his bedroom door, not even turning around as he gives Percy and Grover some privacy.

“Not the Massachusetts pair,” Grover scowls into his camera. His face is so concerned and so familiar and so comforting that Percy begins to see that he's being a Grinch to himself.

“I’m a Grinch,” Percy begins. “I’m a Grinch who is afraid to ask Annabeth how she’s doing because it’d be an acknowledgement of her saying she’s no longer in love with Luke and I don’t want her to think I’m asking because I have ulterior motives. I don’t have ulterior motives. I just wanna know how she’s doing and if she’s okay and if there’s anything I can do. We had psych yesterday and she was funny and smart and emailed me her study guide for the final in two weeks and all I kept thinking about was how sad I was to leave the city even though she was right next–”

“Percy–”

“– to me. And I’m a Grinch for that, Grover. A fucking sour Grinch and I’m maybe crying about it because there’s no easy way out. I – I – I wish she had never told me about her feelings. I’d rather be blindsided, honestly. Would rather wake up one day to a Facebook relationship change and I don’t know what reaction I’d use. The laughing one. No. The sad one. No. Fuck. Fuck! Why are there so many Facebook reaction options and how am I supposed to know which one is right?”

“Perc–”

“My heart is breaking for her, Grover. She deserves to be happy.”

“Oh, Percy,” Grover’s shoulder slump and Percy feels burning in his eyes. “Your heart's too big.”

“That’s the opposite of the Grinch’s problem, Grover,” Percy says helplessly. Eighteen is a tough age; no one seems to truly understand you or the Grinch, Percy thinks.

“Okay,” Grover rolls his eyes and shifts his position. He’s sitting in a cafe, Percy belatedly realizes. Grover is sitting in a public cafe and he’s Skyping and he’s not wearing any headphones. His best friend opens his mouth to speak before Percy cuts him off.

“You’re not wearing Airpods?” Percy narrows his eyes and whispers. “I just blabbered loudly and you’re not wearing Airpods in public, is that right? Because I don’t see any cords.”

Grover doesn’t even look ashamed, his eyebrows rising and lips pursing. “I refuse to needlessly fall prey to contemporary capitalism.”

It’s such a Grover thing to do and say that Percy bursts into laughter. It always amazes him just how much he misses his closest friend, how one of Grover’s leveled looks can make any situation that much more manageable. Six months ago, Percy never would have believed he’d be surrounded by as many friends as he has now.

“It got too blurry,” he says.

“What did?” Grover sets his elbows on his cafe table. There’s a ceramic mug that’s suspiciously close to his right arm that Percy is worried about. “The thing with Annabeth?”

“The whole semester,” Percy says honestly. “I didn’t know college would be so…”

“Hormonal?” Grover snorts and nudges the mug an inch closer to the edge of the table. There’s smooth jazz playing in the cafe and Percy can see at least three people in beanies behind his friend. He’s really happy for Grover; he made the right choice by going upstate. It’s selfish to wish he were beside him, Percy realizes. He loves his friends too much to be selfish.

“Exactly,” he nods and fights back a grin.

“Who knew adding young adults to a co-ed environment with loose expectations for structure would lead to messy social dynamics?”

“This wasn’t in the freshman orientation,” Percy points out loftily, his earlier melancholy forgotten.

“Percy,” Grover laughs and ignores the stares from other customers. It’s just another reason he is Percy’s bestest friend in the entire world. “You didn’t pay attention during freshman orientation.”

“No,” Percy disagrees, voice soft, limbs lighter. He thinks of the sunshine of that day, the heat on the paved stones, and the warmth of her hand. “I was paying attention.”

(Even so, he doesn’t need help knowing where to go from here.)

“Do you have any blue soda?”

“What the fuck is that?”

“Uh, it’s soda. That’s blue.”

“What for?”

“To go with the pizza.”

“Why the fuck would we have blue soda?”

“To sell, I guess.”

“Jesus wept. I fucking hate college kids.”

“Why do you work at a college, then, bro?”

“For the thrilling conversations.”

“Oh. That’s kind of you to say. I’m having fun too.”

“Get the fuck out. ”

When he knocks on her apartment door later that day, Percy expects to find a troubled version of his friend, the troubled look that he is all too familiar with. Instead, Annabeth opens the door with a softer look. Her hair is braided, her face blotchy and one of Hazel’s t-shirts on. Despite that, she smiles when she sees him and opens the door.

“I brought pizza,” he raises the box unnecessarily. He clears his throat, walking into the apartment.

“From that weird place near the science building or from town?” Annabeth gives him a knowing look.

“From the weird place near the science building.” Percy hangs his head dramatically.

Annabeth clicks her tongue. “Rookie mistake.”

“Are Hazel and Piper here?” Percy asks quickly, looking around as if either of them are hiding behind furniture. Who knows with those two?

“No,” Annabeth shakes her head, leading him to the kitchen. She reaches for plates and looks back to him. “I asked them to give me the apartment for a few hours.”

“Oh,” he stops in his tracks, his hands on the cardboard box. It clicks with him then, what she might have been doing the last few hours. “I’m sorry I stopped by – I didn’t know if you were busy. I should have called. I can leave, you know, if you want? I can leave.”

Annabeth shakes her head and gives him a small smile. “It’s good to see you. Please stay. Is this pepperoni?”

“Yeah,” he finishes opening the box. She hands him a plate and he puts a slice on it for her. He grabs his own and follows her to the couch.

Annabeth settles on her end of the couch, her fuzzy socks digging under his legs when he sits down. She throws him a cheeky grin when he rolls his eyes. They eat in silence. It’s comfortable but not as comfortable as it can be. After a few minutes, Annabeth puts her plate on the coffee table and settles deeper in the couch. Percy follows her example, throwing a blanket across her legs and pressing his head into the cushion.

“It’s weird being back,” he admits. “I can’t tell if the city or college is the real world. They’re so different.”

“They’re both the real world,” Annabeth says, voice even. “That’s what makes it confusing.”

“How are you?” He blurts out before he loses his courage to ask. Percy doesn’t know what she will think, if she will see his question as prying into what he shouldn’t. He doesn’t care about her and Luke, he’s decided. Not really. He just cares about her.

“I’m better than I thought I’d be,” Annabeth says after a beat, a slight look of surprise on her face. She wiggles her toes under his thigh and gives him a sad smile. “Thanks for asking.”

There’s a sliver of blue in her smile but it’s a smile all the same.

“I didn’t want you to think that I was, like, prying, you know?” He says in a rushed manner. “I just wanted to be sure you were okay. I feel like you’ve turned a corner with your dad, with school, with – with Luke.” He mentally slaps himself upside the head. This is not where he wanted to go with this because it’s not the point. “I’m here for you.”

Annabeth blinks at him. “I know, Percy. I think I’ve known that for a while, even when we were arguing before.” October was a long month. She takes a steady breath before she continues. “I’m here for you too, you know?”

Percy lets out a shaky exhale, a weight lifted from his chest. “I know.”

“How are you?” She asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve been better,” he admits honestly. The darkness that winter brings is difficult some days more than others. “This morning I was convinced that I was the Grinch.”

Annabeth laughs, light and non-mocking. She shakes her head seemingly at her own thoughts. “God, that’s a mood.”

Percy presses his face more into the cushion, a warmth spreading through his chest. “I feel better now, though. I talked it out with Grover.”

“Me too,” she says with a clear voice, a determined face. “Grover sounds like a good friend.”

“Oh, he’s the best,” Percy agrees.

Annabeth tugs the blanket closer to her, sinking deeper into the cushions. “I’ve never had so many friends before.”

Percy nods, already knowing this and feeling the same.

She continues, “I think I’d be so sad if our friendships ended. I think… well, I think I’d feel a bit lost. Like I’m missing part of who I’m becoming, you know?”

“Yeah,” Percy nods, voice tight. It’s a melancholy that goes with the end of the semester, even if they are all set to return in January.

“But,” Annabeth goes on, eyes meeting his own. There’s a set look on her face, an acceptance. “When I broke up with Luke this morning, he didn’t seem sad or shocked or – or heartbroken. He just looked relieved.”

Annabeth lets out a shaky, breathy chuckle, her face smooth.

Percy doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s a swirl of indignation and anger that could easily be directed at Luke, but he doesn’t want to do anything with those emotions. It’s enough to just accept that they exist. Even more pressing, Percy feels sympathy for Annabeth. He doesn’t think she wanted a complicated ending with Luke – he wasn’t even sure if she wanted one at all – but it must hurt her on some level to experience that kind of response.

“I think it was well overdue,” Annabeth stares at him, open and vulnerable. “I spent so long pushing down all of my feelings until I told myself that I didn’t feel anything. But that was – that was just running. It didn’t make me the Grinch; it just made me me. ”

Percy watches as her face smooths, how her eyes close and her hair bunches on the armrest of her couch.

It strikes him that Annabeth looks relieved too.

“Deniability is a bitch,” he tells her, voice thick. He closes his own eyes and feels his own version of relief. Annabeth will be okay, regardless of her relationship status. It feels important to him that he understands the difference.

Her problem, Percy realizes later on his walk home, is that she feels too much. He doesn’t fault her for it. In fact, he thinks later that night when he steals his sweatpants from Jason’s laundry basket, it’s one of the reasons he loves her.

(He chooses to forgive himself for the same crime.)

“Will you pay attention?” Hazel whispers harshly to Leo, stopping the scratching noise he is making with his pencil. “He’s explaining the final.”

Leo looks up from his sketchbook and blinks. “No, Hazel, I will not. I’m gonna continue being distracted and do what I want.”

Piper sighs, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. She throws a side glance at Percy, face smooth. “Wake me up when the class ends.”

“Calm down, Green Day. He’s gonna throw you outta class for sleeping,” Percy settles comfortably in his own chair.

He had a swim meet the night before and got home late, only to wake early to start his day. December brings a pace more forgiving than November, but unmarred and sleepy, like falling snow. It’s peaceful, sitting here in class with his friends, time passing. Winter settles deep.

“I’d like to see him try,” Piper quips, leaning her head on his shoulder. Her hair smells like his shampoo and instead of griping over it, he smiles. Stupid Piper and her stupid thieving hands. What would he do without her?

He was kinda hoping that he’d get to use Hazel’s English lit notes after class, but she’s too busy arguing with Leo to write any notes. He sighs, blinking slowly at the front of the room, the dulcet sounds of their professor calm and smooth. Fuck. How is he gonna stay awake for the next two hours?

“Don’t think you can leave this class with an A if you didn’t put in the work,” their professor throws them a pointed glance that Percy ignores. Fuck an A. He’d be happy with a C.

Piper presses her cheek against his arm and sighs. “I can’t wait for this semester to be over. It feels like the longest three months of my life.”

“It flew by,” Percy says through a tight throat. “Can’t believe I’m actually here, even after all this time. Feels like I’m just starting to get a rhythm and now – it’s ending.”

Piper huffs out a breath and closes her eyes again. “Still don’t miss high school, though.”

Percy laughs quietly. “Fuck that.”

She smiles and their professor continues to talk. “Fuck that.”

Just as he’s watching their professor start up the projector and flip the lights off, Leo and Hazel come to a silent truce, the soft scratching of graphite meeting paper from them both offering a steady rhythm. It isn’t long before Percy’s eyes become heavy, another day in another class flying by him.

He’s no longer worried about the passage of time, he decides. Somewhere along the semester, he discovered parts of himself he never thought he would. College is as much about learning as it is failing, he’s learned. Percy has spent the entire semester trying to find his place amid the cobblestones, the chlorine air of the athletic center, and among his friends. But maybe it’s not about finding his place. Maybe college is about accepting that you create your own.

“Wake up,” Piper wakes him an hour later, smiling. “Class is over. I think I owe you a coffee.”

“Matcha isn’t coffee,” Percy mumbles, eyes blinking awake in the near-empty classroom.

“No,” Piper says, surprised that he remembers their first few days of friendship. “It’s not.”

(If he’s learned one thing through the months, it’s that this is exactly where he belongs.)

Percy swims and swims and swims and he’s not swimming away from a single thought.

Heavy snow finds them on a Thursday, coating the campus with a blanket of reflective white, blinding and silent. It’s the part of winter Percy loves most: there is a quietness in the air that feels intentional, mindful. It’ll melt in the months to come, a seeping that he is used to, but he no longer feels overwhelmed by the thought. Snow and emotions don’t worry him anymore: he is more than the overflowing of his emotions. It’s a relief to just accept his feelings as they are, to accept that he is as loved as he is.

Percy doesn’t feel fermented or acidic anymore. He just feels.

And it’s okay to just feel, he’s learned.

He thinks of Annabeth as he walks to class, the look on her face when she admitted that she misses her dad. She is a type of brave that he hadn’t known before, choosing to not fight the battle she felt that she had to. He watched as she called her father on their way back to campus, the relief on her face when he answered, the choice she made to accept her anger as part of who she once was and not who she wants to be.

It hits him hard, the realization: he wants for Annabeth. Percy wants her to accept the love she deserves, not just the kind she’s used to. It goes well beyond Luke, their ridiculous college game of catch-and-release, late hour realizations.

Above all, Percy just wants her to be happy.

When she rushes into the classroom, Annabeth grins at him from her side of their shared table, her nose pink and eyes watery. She pulls her green mittens off. “It’s freezing out there.”

“I can’t tell if you’re complaining,” Percy laughs. It’s the end of the first week of December. Finals are coming soon, but where he once expected Annabeth to be focused and irritable, he finds her laughing and excited. “Are you complaining?”

“Nope,” she shakes her head, smiling wide still. She sets her bag beneath the table and rubs her palms together. Their professor is late as usual, most of their classmates not bothering to brave the snow. Annabeth is brave, he thinks. She’s smart and funny and brave, with a pink nose and green mittens. “I love it.”

He gestures to their near-empty classroom. “Do you think anyone else will show up?”

Annabeth looks around and shrugs. “This was just the review class, wasn’t it? Before the final next week?”

“Yeah,” Percy nods. Annabeth turns to him, her smile now mischievous, grabbing his hand. She’s bubbling with energy, a mini furnace in the middle of winter.

“Let’s skip.”

“Skip what? No one’s here.” He barks out a laugh. Percy brings his other hand to cover hers. “How are you still so warm? It’s fucking freezing out.”

She stands, pulling him up and reaching for his hat on the table. “Come on. Class was supposed to start ten minutes ago. I bet we missed an email or something and class is cancelled.”

“Where are we going?” Percy reaches for his coat, eyeing the snowfall through the window behind her. Annabeth puts on her coat, her smile still so wide.

“Help me with this,” she ignores his question, handing him her scarf. He obliges, wrapping her scarf around her hair and neck, tossing the end over her shoulder. Once her mittens are back on, she grabs her bag and brushes past him. “Let’s go, Percy. We’re missing it.”

“Missing what?” He quickly gathers his own bag, shoving his notebook into his bag and hurrying after her.

Annabeth jogs through the hallways, and it is only then that Percy realizes how empty the building is. He finally reaches her when she flies through the double doors to the outside, her hair whipping behind her. She throws him a smile and gestures to the area where they spent the afternoons lounging on the grass. Now, it is covered in a growing layer of snow. Regardless of the cold, Annabeth trudges forward, her boots sinking through the field and bringing her to their usual spot.

“Here,” she calls to him, waving a mittened hand in the air, her face pink and bright. Even in the middle of a snowstorm, he thinks she is beautiful. “What are you waiting for?”

Seemingly nothing, because he walks towards her. By the time he makes it, a clump of snowflakes is settled on her face, her grey hat pulled down over her ears. He brushes it off of her face with a gloved hand, smiling. “Now what?”

“I wanna lay down and watch it come down,” she tells him quietly. “Is that alright?”

“Yeah,” Percy nods because of course it’s alright. Winter is a guaranteed time of reflection for him, a tilt away from the sun and opportunity. Watching Annabeth discover it for herself, the marvel of cold contemplation – well, winter is a cold season if you are alone in it.

They settle as she requests, their sides pressed together, faces looking up to the sky. It’s a perspective he hasn’t had since he was a kid. His fingertips are slowly becoming numb despite the gloves and there is definitely snow melting in his boots, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because Annabeth is beside him and time is slowing for just a moment and he just wants her to be happy.

Minutes pass before she takes his hand.

“I want to thank you,” Annabeth starts, breaking the silence between them, breathing clouding in the cold air. “For being my friend when I needed one. For just accepting that my feelings don’t make sense sometimes. For supporting me when I called my dad.”

“I want you to be happy,” Percy tells her, raw honesty. “It’s that simple.”

Annabeth is silent for a moment, their words sitting between them. After a beat, she moves, her arm thrown around his waist, her head settling on his shoulder. She presses her cheek against his coat and her breath warms his neck. Percy wraps an arm around her, remembering the times in the city when he’d only think about the barrier between them. Now, he thinks of the understanding between them.

(It’s a marvel of his own, he’s discovering: to be seen and accepted and understood, like falling snow for the first time – it’s a facet of love he’s learning.)

>Piper (0945): can we go on a group walk after my bio final today?

>Leo (0946): not this argument again

>Nico (0947): um annabeth can’t walk??

>Annabeth (0948): it was a CONCUSSION not a broken leg

>Jason (0948): walk where?

>Piper (0949): around campus

>Reyna (0950): i mean if it’s that important to you

>Piper (0950): it is :-)

“I’m just saying, ” Jason starts again and Leo rolls his eyes. “I think we should plan something during break.”

“No one wants to see you,” Reyna says blithely, her red hat pulled over her black hair. She trudges forward on their walk, the empty path unmarred after the most recent snowfall. Reyna throws a grin over her shoulder and sticks her tongue out.

“I think at least one person would want to see me,” Jason scowls after her. “Piper, probably.”

“Probably,” Piper repeats casually. “But there’s still the chance that I wouldn’t.”

“I’ll visit you,” Percy begins. Jason turns around to give him a broad smile. “You handing out plane tickets?”

“Well, no,” Jason frowns, walking backwards on the path. Part of Percy wants to tell him to like, turn around and be careful, but a larger part of him kinda wants to see Jason eat shit in the snow. He decides to stay quiet.

“I’ll visit you, Jason,” Annabeth offers beside Percy. She brings a thermos of hot cocoa to her lips, its steam rising into her face. She steps into Piper’s footsteps carefully, her eyebrows scrunched in concentration. “You’re near Berkeley, right?”

Jason grins, turning in the snow and throwing a middle finger to Reyna. She’s so far ahead of them, her coated form hustling down the campus pathways. Percy doesn’t think she’s moving fast to annoy Jason. He just thinks she’s cold as hell. Nico, Frank, and Leo gave up after the first quarter mile. He wonders if anyone will make the entire trek around campus. He’s considering turning around with each step but he doesn’t wanna miss anything funny, like Jason eating shit.

“I’ll ask my dad to, like, consider hosting everyone,” Annabeth goes on, voice trembling slightly. “I told him about you guys. It was kinda embarrassing. You’re all dumb and not funny whatsoever.”

Hazel smiles into her scarf from Percy’s other side. She shoves her hands deeper into her coat pockets. “Sure, Annabeth. You hate us. I’d still love to visit San Fran, though, if that’s okay.”

“Anytime,” Annabeth beams.

“Are you paying for these plane tickets?” Percy teases her, shoulder bumping hers. Annabeth blinks at him before her face breaks into a grin.

“I thought you were scared of flying,” she grins mischievously. “You said you’re afraid of plane crashes and turbulence and thunderstorms. How about a train ticket?”

“Oh,” Percy stops in his tracks, frowning at her. “That’s rude. I confide in you and you use it against me.”

“How can you be afraid of flying?” Jason mocks from ahead of them, unaware that Annabeth and Percy have stopped walking. “You’re safer in a plane than in a car, statistically speaking.”

“What are you gonna do about it?” Annabeth asks cheekily.

“Give me this,” Percy takes a step to her, reaching for her thermos. She hands it to him, face blank. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Okay,” Percy sagely nods to her, setting the thermos on the side of the path. Their friends are ahead, none the wiser that they’ve fallen behind. “I’m gonna, like, throw you in the snow. Just so you’re aware.”

“What about your email?” Annabeth beams like he didn’t just threaten her. “What happened to ‘low-impact exercise’?”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“When you throw me in the snow?”

“I’m happy you understand.”

“I mean, I don’t, but okay. Carry on.”

“Threetwoone.”

(He didn’t expect to, like, slip on the snow and eat shit before he could even reach her, but her giggle made it worth it.)

>Annabeth (2305): how’s the face

>Percy (2305): my mom said that i’m still handsome

>Annabeth (2306): that’s all that matters

>Annabeth (2306): your mom’s opinion i mean

>Annabeth (2306): not like

>Percy (2306): it’s okay you can admit that i’m handsome

>Annabeth (2307): i’m too busy still laughing at you

>Percy (2308): i’ll get ya next time

>Annabeth (2309): get some sleep for the final in the morning!!!!

>Percy (2309): then stop texting me!!!!!

“Hey,” Annabeth whispers as their instructor begins to hand out their final exams. Percy doesn’t hear her, his leg shaking nervously under the table, bottom lip between his teeth. “Percy.”

“What’s up?” Percy looks at her. She tilts her head and gives him a close lip smile.

“You’re gonna do great,” she says softly. “Just take your time.”

“I’m aiming for a C,” he tries to joke but his voice cracks. Fucking nerves. This is why he hates school. What’s one exam gonna prove, anyway?

Annabeth shakes her head. Their instructor reaches their table, their tests flipped upside down. She makes her way to the front of the room, her eyes traveling over the students. She begins her spiel about academic honesty, integrity, blah blah blah. She’s probably gonna fall asleep at her desk anyway. It’s a fucking Intro to Psych class.

“You can get an A,” Annabeth rushes to whisper, startling Percy from his inner rambling. He rolls his eyes playfully, his stomach flipping. “You can and you know it.” He blinks at her sudden warm smile. “I know you can, Percy.”

“What do I get if I do?” He blurts out before his self-control can catch up to his stupidity.

“Get started. You have two hours,” their instructor makes her way to her desk, flipping open a magazine and not looking up.

Percy looks back at Annabeth, expecting to see a disapproving look or shock or even disgust on her face. Honestly, what the fuck was he thinking?

Instead, Annabeth is staring at him, her face in a sly smile. He raises an eyebrow.

Well? He mouths.

We’ll see, she mouths back, her face – now pink – turning to look down at her test.

(How the fuck is he supposed to concentrate now?)

Grover calls him after his Tuesday practice.

“Dude,” he laughs incredulously. “I passed my Intro to Botany course. I was really worried for a minute.”

“Why?” Percy shakes his hair out before he tucks a hat on. He nods to Jason, signaling that he can leave without him.

“Juniper is in that class,” his best friend says like it’s something that Percy should have already known. What the fuck, Percy shakes his head to himself and grins.

“Grover,” Percy laughs, leaning down to tie his boots. “You are so fucked.”

“I know,” Grover barks out a loud laugh. “Swooned.”

(He’s so happy for his friend that Percy can’t come up with a snarky retort.)

“I’m dead,” Leo says from his living room floor. “Studying for physics killed me and now I’m dead.”

“If you’re dead,” Percy intones from the couch, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. He double-taps Grover’s latest post about Juniper’s homemade soap. Sustainable, he comments. “Is this heaven or hell?”

“Well, you’re here,” Leo points out, eyes closed. “Must be hell.”

“I’m here too,” Annabeth mutters from Leo’s side. She’s face-down on the carpet, her curly hair a mess around her head. There are ink stains on her hands, her notebook thrown across the room.

“A deeper level of hell,” Leo grins. Annabeth blindly slaps her hand on the floor trying to reach him. There’s the unmistakable sound of a slap before Leo curses. “You’re just proving my fucking point.”

“You brought this on yourself. Double major. Engineering. What’s wrong with you?” Percy asks, grinning when he sees Grover’s swooned comment.

“So much,” Annabeth laughs to herself.

“What’s your major, bro?” Leo glares at Percy, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

“I’m thinking psychology,” he says casually, ignoring Annabeth when she snaps her head up from the floor and stares at him. “Got an A on the final.”

“Oh, bro, congrats,” Leo raises a hand. Percy high-fives him and grins. “Your medal is in the mail.”

“Fuck you,” Percy laughs, looking back at his phone.

(He definitely, definitely, definitely ignores Annabeth’s hard stare. Same, he comments back on Grover’s post. Fucking same. )

When he finishes his last final on Thursday afternoon, Percy trudges home. He kicks off his snowy boots, flings his hat somewhere towards the kitchen, and practically crawls to his bedroom. The afternoon light is grey, a sleepy seeping through the blinds that cuts angles across his comforter. He’s never been so tired.

Percy dives under the blanket, eyes heavy, and sleeps until the next morning.

(He knows his mom would be proud.)

Sally (1342): How did the week go?

Percy (1344): kicked my ass

Percy (1345): but definitely keeping the scholarship lol

Sally (1346): You’ve come a long way. I’m proud of you, scholarship or not.

Nico is the first to show up the next evening, his t-shirt hanging loosely from his frame, a picture of disgruntlement. When Percy lets him in through the door, he can only watch as he flops onto the carpet in front of the couch, his hands curling under his head, falling quickly asleep. Frank is next, Leo in tow. They’re arguing over something - Percy doesn’t understand a word they’re saying - and ignore him as they raid his fridge. Reyna shows up with a grin on her face, texting away on her phone. Percy tries to ask about Clara or whatever the fuck her name is, but Reyna boops him on the nose and settles against the couch. Nico wakes when she arrives, his hand finding her ankle and falling back asleep.

Hazel is next, grocery bags full of food lining her arms. Percy rushes to help her, grinning when he sees their favorite snacks. Hazel helps him unpack the bags and he scowls when Leo takes a bag of chips for himself. Jason and Piper come out from his room and Percy glares at them. Jason blows him a kiss and Piper tries to catch it with her hand.

“Too slow,” Percy says smugly, pressing his palm to his cheek. “He was mine first.”

Annabeth is last to arrive, her hair twisted around her scarf cheeks red, apologizing for being so late. Reyna waves her off with a hand, a smile on her face. Frank throws her coat on the coat pile and asks about her day.

“I saw Luke on my way over,” she tells them when she flops onto the couch. Nico opens an eye. “We talked for a little bit and I kinda realized something.”

“What’s that?” Hazel tucks her feet under her, fingers brushing through Reyna’s hair.

Annabeth laughs, golden and disbelieving. “He’d suck at Mario Kart. He always thought he was too good for shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans,” Leo repeats.

“Shut the fuck up,” Annabeth says fondly. “What did you put for the last question on the final?”

The night begins, loud and obnoxious and them. Percy tries his best to come in the top three at Mario Kart and grumbles when he doesn’t. Fucking Peach and the sports bike. He never should have invited Reyna over all those months ago. It’s consistently the girls who come in first, Annabeth and Reyna coming to an understanding that Leo is the biggest threat out of all of them, much to Frank’s delight. Food is passed around and Jason cleans up after them like the child soldier he is, Percy thinks. He tries to mock his roommate for it, but he chokes on his tortilla chip in his excitement. Whatever. Next time.

It strikes him that this might be the last time they get to do this for almost two months. Fucking fuck, Percy thinks. He’ll miss these idiots.

“I’ll miss you idiots,” he tells them after hours have passed, in the middle of a debate about whether or not chili is a soup. “Will you miss me?”

“Depends. Is chili soup?” Piper asks him, eyebrows raised.

“Nope,” Percy shakes his head, wanting validation but not totally fucking desperate for it.

“Then I will not miss you,” Piper decides, throwing him a glare. “Annabeth might, though.”

“I want Oreos,” Annabeth blurts out, face pink. “Be right back.”

“I’ll miss you,” Frank offers, breaking the awkward silence. Percy brings a hand to his forehead and pretends to swoon. Frank flips him off.

“It’s just seven weeks,” Leo shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “Bunch of saps.”

“Is syrup sap? Oh my god. Is syrup tree blood?” Jason ponders, alarmed, and Reyna bursts into a fit of laughter.

“Why do you make it so easy for us?” She wipes at her eyes. “I can’t – I can’t – Jason, what is the matter with you?”

“That’s a good question, though,” Hazel says quietly. She furrows her brow, deep in thought.

“I guess we could call Grover and ask,” Annabeth offers, walking back from the kitchen with a package of Oreos.

“We could,” Percy pats the spot next to him. Annabeth settles down, passing him a cookie. “But do we really wanna get a lecture about the maple syrup industry?”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Actually, I kinda do,” Nico admits. “Sounds like a capitalist’s nightmare. Where’s your laptop?”

“On my desk. Why am I friends with a bunch of socialists?” Percy sighs, breaking apart his Oreo.

“Oh,” Annabeth blinks at him, eyebrows raised. “You don’t just bite into it? You eat the filling first?”

Percy looks at her, incredulous. She’s beautiful and smart and warm but goddamn. She doesn’t know how to eat Oreos. They’re gonna bicker about this, he knows.

“Annabeth Chase,” he says slowly, taking the cookie out of her hand.

“Percy Jackson,” she narrows her eyes at him, snatching it back.

“Here we go,” Hazel groans.

(She’s the idiot, socialist, sunshine goblin he’ll miss the most.)

Annabeth is the last to arrive and the last to leave.

Hazel leaves with Reyna and Nico, Leo and Frank following suit not long after. Piper sifts through the fridge for the fourth time that night, signaling that she’s there to stay over. He’s sad to see them leave, feeling ridiculous and justified all the same. Seven weeks is a long time, he reminds himself. What if they forget about him?

Percy brushes that doubt aside. He’s come a long way since August, no longer second-guessing his place among his friends.

“I should head out,” Annabeth says around midnight. “It’ll take me a long time to pack tomorrow.”

“When do you leave?” Percy asks, voice thick.

“Monday,” she grimaces.

“You can stay over,” he offers. “We got rave reviews on the couch the last time Frank stayed over.”

“Sounds like you just want an excuse to sleep on your couch,” she grins.

“I meant for you,” he teases her.

Annabeth laughs. “I should get home, though.”

“I’ll walk you back,” Percy promises, not quite wanting the night to end, and Annabeth hides a smile.

Winter nights are silent, the crunch of snow beneath their boots, their breaths rising towards the stars. The campus is beautiful at night. Annabeth walks beside him, face tucked into her scarf, hands deep in her coat pockets. It’s freezing cold outside, the semester is over, and he still feels like he did that August day. What a fucking sap, he thinks to himself. Or tree blood. Hm. It is a good question.

He’s sad and blue and settled, but not confused. His friend group is a mix of people, stitched together in a way that he feels secure in. Even so, the blue feeling of the semester ending sticks to him like snowflakes falling onto his face, melting underneath his skin.

But there’s more to blue than just sadness, his mom taught him long ago.

The thing is, when Percy reflects on the last few months, he is proud and happy and secure. He never thought he’d be here. He’s becoming a version of himself that he wouldn’t have guessed attainable. Empathetic, colorful, no longer an overflowing pool. There’s a blue lining to the passing of time, the change of season, the growth he’s experienced.

It’s the perfect shade.

He sneaks glances at her every few steps, words at the tip of his tongue. Before he can speak, Annabeth catches his eye, stopping in her tracks. She stares at him, her eyes flickering over his face, her nose pink. The streetlight casts a pale shadow on her face, the echo of silence and the end of the semester ringing in his ears. The air between them is charged, open, honest.

“I’ll miss winter and campus and New York,” she begins, voice trembling.

“I get it,” Percy nods, throat tight. He understands, even if he’s grown up here. He doesn’t know if he’ll see it the same with her gone over the coming weeks.

“I’ll miss you, ” Annabeth says, her eyes a pale shade of blue in the light. Percy feels a significant shift of color and emotion and time. “I’m so happy I came here. I didn’t think I’d like it. Everyone said New York would get so cold, but that – that’s just not true. Meeting Piper and Hazel and Reyna and Leo and – and just everyone. I never thought I’d get so lucky.”

“I feel the same way,” Percy tells her. “I never really believed that anyone would wanna be my friend besides Grover and Rachel.”

Annabeth nods, understanding that special brand of being unseen. She’s close, her breath rising to the sky. “I think I’m lucky that you’re my friend.”

“Your best friend,” Percy tries to tease her, his voice failing him. There’s a weight to his words that goes unspoken, a truth between them. He is in love with her, he reminds himself, and she knows it.

“The very best,” Annabeth gives him a quiet smile.

“You’re mine, too,” he tells her suddenly. “In case I didn’t say it before. Or enough. Or whatever. You’re my best friend.”

Annabeth looks at him and he takes her in. She’s standing on an empty path with him on their college campus, the moon high in the sky, the air crisp. She holds her own mittened hands, her cheeks pink in the cold. Her eyes are clear, the perfect shade of grey. He remembers the entire semester, their miscommunications and misalignments and mistakes. Percy can’t bring himself to fully regret them because they brought them here, in the darkest part of the year, the summer sun long gone.

Even so, he can feel and see and love so clearly.

“You’re in love with me,” Annabeth whispers, and he watches her words and doubt turn into vapor around her face.

“I am,” Percy confirms, no longer hiding behind deniability or the orange glow of the New York streetlight. It’s just him and Annabeth, and he does give a fuck.

“When I said you were my best friend,” Annabeth begins, her face serious, words slow. “I was confused.”

Percy waits, his words and heart already laid before her.

She goes on, voice no longer trembling, “Love and friendship can look the same if you’re afraid to see a difference.”

“Are you afraid?” Percy whispers and wonders what she sees when she looks at him like that.

She takes a step closer to him, their bodies barely touching, her green mittens traveling up his chest until her arms are wrapped around his neck. Looking up at him, Annabeth smiles, warmer and brighter and even better than the sun could ever be.

“Not anymore,” Annabeth tells him honestly.

“I got an A on the final,” he reminds her, a grin spreading across his face. She lets out a soft giggle, one that he isn’t sure he will ever get used to. Percy feels a rush of warmth through his ribcage, right in the middle of a path on a winter night in December.

“I knew you could do it,” Annabeth beams, her face close to his. Her smile shifts to something else, settled and intimate. Quietly, “I think I’ve known for a long time.”

“Known what?” He asks, voice low.

Annabeth looks up at him for a split moment, her hands moving up his chest, arms settling around his neck. He can feel her breath on his face. Slowly, Percy wraps his arms around her waist, holding her closer than ever before.

“I’m in love with you, too,” she says against his lips, no longer running or afraid or shadowed.

Beaming, glowing, radiating.

(This is their first kiss.)

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holydot on Chapter 1 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:55AM UTC

i’m currently the definition of the girl who is going to be okay… i’ve spent literally tens of hours of my life searching for the six chapters of this fic that were previously posted and now we’re getting the whole thing. could not be more thrilled

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 1 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:34AM UTC
  
  we really are gonna be okay <3 glad you're thrilled!!!
  
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rswaf on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Jul 2024 08:00PM UTC

so obsessed w ur writing style!!

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Wiseowl_23 on Chapter 1 Thu 19 Sep 2024 03:27AM UTC

This is so beautiful

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Havelanca on Chapter 1 Sun 29 Dec 2024 12:48PM UTC

Liz, I would crawl over a cold, windy cliff just to read more of your beautifully curated words. I already adore this story with my whole heart and soul.

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Cip00ng on Chapter 1 Tue 03 Jun 2025 02:50PM UTC

Im in love

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loveliet on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:07AM UTC

the way i JUMPED this is literally one of my favorite fics EVER ive never been more grateful in my life!!!!

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:33AM UTC
  
  kissing you
  
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ordinaryoda on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:25AM UTC

my FAVOURITE fic of all time omg🥺🥺

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1. ordinaryoda on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:28AM UTC
  
  Also annabeth chase you would have loved fresh out the slammer by taylor swift
  
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2. 1. nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:32AM UTC
    
    she would have also loved the smallest man who ever lived <3
    
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3. nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:33AM UTC
  
  <3 kissing you on the mouth
  
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prophecygirlz on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 10:03PM UTC

the way you write emotions…..just perfect

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 10:20PM UTC
  
  and if i kiss you then what
  
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Cerulean_ocean_99 on Chapter 2 Mon 10 Jun 2024 02:06AM UTC

I can't believe you're back!!! I LOVED dbb so MUCH my heart broke when you dissapeared from AO3 and Tumblr!!!! I know a lot of people that missed your fics, too. I hope that whatever happened is long forgotten and you are doing okay :)
Also I'M SO GRATEFUL :') I'm going to read it again a thousand times, I love your writing so so much <3

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Mon 10 Jun 2024 03:31AM UTC
  
  your comment made my day, tysm <3 i'm blowing you a kiss!!!! and another!!!
  
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percabethshoe on Chapter 2 Wed 12 Jun 2024 07:02PM UTC

just fell to my knees screaming crying and throwing up. thank you sm, this fic is soo near and dear to my heart. and im soo excited to fall in love with it and ur writing all over again. soo glad to have u back, i hope u know how missed u were!! <3

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Wed 12 Jun 2024 09:49PM UTC
  
  your comment made me :') tysm ily... you've encouraged me to upload two more chapters
  
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Havelanca on Chapter 2 Sun 29 Dec 2024 01:43PM UTC

My heart is leaking out of my chest and I fear it is from your slow, deliberate destruction of me into twenty-five cracking pieces on the floor (complimentary). You have me in a fatal chokehold and this is me actively thanking you.

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Fourtoomanyships on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Jul 2024 02:00AM UTC

Drunk Percy talking to Luke made me laugh so hard! I love how the writing of this is how he thinks, very similar to the books but more grown up, maybe? I don't really know but I like it

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Jul 2024 02:15AM UTC
  
  it is what i like to call bitch percy <3
  
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2. 1. Fourtoomanyships on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Jul 2024 03:15AM UTC
    
    My fav style of Percy tbh
    
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Wiseowl_23 on Chapter 3 Thu 19 Sep 2024 04:31AM UTC

Oh god I’m squealing

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Havelanca on Chapter 3 Sun 29 Dec 2024 03:15PM UTC

Owww owww owww thanks my heart (and another owww owwww owwww)

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prophecygirlz on Chapter 4 Wed 12 Jun 2024 11:12PM UTC

i feel like you put your hand into my chest and ripped out my heart. that last scene should be illegal.

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 4 Wed 12 Jun 2024 11:30PM UTC
  
  excellent that's exactly how i want you to feel xx
  
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Just_Katie on Chapter 4 Thu 13 Jun 2024 05:55PM UTC

Crying so hard like my god this fic is actually amazing xx

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 4 Sat 15 Jun 2024 11:52PM UTC
  
  thank you <3 i'm glad you like it <3
  
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Wiseowl_23 on Chapter 4 Thu 19 Sep 2024 05:09AM UTC

I’m sobbing

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Havelanca on Chapter 4 Sun 29 Dec 2024 04:06PM UTC

This chapter shattered me, as ever. This made me sob. I am utterly floored by every way you rework the canon of the original series into this AU btw. Like Rachel's role, and Calypso's role, and Annabeth's 'person', abandonment issues and sense of loneliness, and Percy and Annabeth's fighting/not talking/miscommunications, and Luke's complicated identity and relationship with Annabeth (as well as Percy's difficulty in articulating his legitimate concern over Luke/Annabeth dating without it just looking like jealousy bias, and Percy's belief that a friend's worth should not be relegated to just Romantic Prospects). It just- *screams into a pillow* - its so good.

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Moon_ello on Chapter 4 Mon 24 Feb 2025 04:19AM UTC

Ok so lesson learned don’t listen to Jeff Buckley and read this chapter. my heart.

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red1319 on Chapter 5 Mon 17 Jun 2024 03:22AM UTC

aaa the tension between them… so good!!

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1. nerdylizj on Chapter 5 Mon 17 Jun 2024 05:47PM UTC
  
  hehehe <3
  
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Work Header

deep burn blue

nerdylizj

Summary:

Chapter 1: tap tap fish

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: deniability, baby

Summary:

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: don't give a fuck

Summary:

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: run, run, run

Summary:

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: surface tension

Summary:

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: shades of blue

Summary:

Chapter Text

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holydot on Chapter 1 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:55AM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 1 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:34AM UTC

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rswaf on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Jul 2024 08:00PM UTC

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Wiseowl_23 on Chapter 1 Thu 19 Sep 2024 03:27AM UTC

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Havelanca on Chapter 1 Sun 29 Dec 2024 12:48PM UTC

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Cip00ng on Chapter 1 Tue 03 Jun 2025 02:50PM UTC

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loveliet on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:07AM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:33AM UTC

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ordinaryoda on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:25AM UTC

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ordinaryoda on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 01:28AM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:32AM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 02:33AM UTC

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prophecygirlz on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 10:03PM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Sun 09 Jun 2024 10:20PM UTC

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Cerulean_ocean_99 on Chapter 2 Mon 10 Jun 2024 02:06AM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Mon 10 Jun 2024 03:31AM UTC

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percabethshoe on Chapter 2 Wed 12 Jun 2024 07:02PM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 2 Wed 12 Jun 2024 09:49PM UTC

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Havelanca on Chapter 2 Sun 29 Dec 2024 01:43PM UTC

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Fourtoomanyships on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Jul 2024 02:00AM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Jul 2024 02:15AM UTC

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Fourtoomanyships on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Jul 2024 03:15AM UTC

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Wiseowl_23 on Chapter 3 Thu 19 Sep 2024 04:31AM UTC

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Havelanca on Chapter 3 Sun 29 Dec 2024 03:15PM UTC

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prophecygirlz on Chapter 4 Wed 12 Jun 2024 11:12PM UTC

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nerdylizj on Chapter 4 Wed 12 Jun 2024 11:30PM UTC

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Just_Katie on Chapter 4 Thu 13 Jun 2024 05:55PM UTC

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