Work Text:
They make a cookie cake for Percy's birthday. In between classes, maybe, with Annabeth's notes for a quiz tomorrow getting covered in batter on the bench, and they're in a communal dorm kitchen and people of various levels of confused keep stopping them, but they bake the cookie cake.
"How much blue, Mom?" Percy asks, down the phone line.
Annabeth keeps stirring. It's not really cookie batter, slightly too fluid. It wouldn't clump together perfectly if they tried to roll it into balls.
But it's for a cake, so it really doesn't matter.
The chocolate chips make an interesting sound as they get mixed over each other. Annabeth likes it, she decides.
"Drop by drop, slowly, carefully" Percy says to Annabeth, putting the phone down. His mum's laughter rings out over the speakerphone as she wishes him a happy birthday and hangs up.
Annabeth keeps stirring as Percy adds the dye. It goes slightly blue, at first, then pales more. He adds more, and they repeat, until he sighs and shakes the bottle and the cookie dough goes a dark blue and stays it.
Percy stares at it. "I guess that's why you go slowly," he says.
Annabeth hums. "Hand me the green?"
She adds a splash of that. By the time it's mixed through, the dough is a dark sea-blue-green.
"Like deep underwater," Percy says. He's smiling.
"Like a seaweed brain," she retorts, and kisses him briefly. "Cake tin?"
They get it scraped in and smoothed over, and then Annabeth has to run to class. Her hands are stained blue-green, and it's hard to focus on the workshop material. She wants to go back.
When she does get back, she finds that he's waited for her.
Not only her. Frank's there, and Hazel, and Reyna, and a couple of people she recognises from classes. Percy cuts the cake, Annabeth accepts a kiss and the associated shouting, and it's nice. Percy's smiling so widely his face must be hurting.
Upon baking it had come out a true sea green in the centre, which was the goal. It tastes… like a cookie. Like a chocolate chip cookie, not quite cooked through, a little soft and chewy except for the crust. It's not her favourite, but it's good, and Percy's joy is a physical thing, warm and buzzing.
There's no such thing as a happy ending, Annabeth thinks to herself. Every day that she doesn't die is a middle. This is their happy middle, spooling out day by day, and she's determined to live it out, smiles and cookie crumbs and stained hands and all.