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Percy thinks it would be easier to sleep in a cardboard box on the side of the road than in Annabeth’s school issued single bed, but he’s not really all that particular about sleeping conditions these days and it’s not like he’ll wake up with a sore back, so he can’t say he minds much. He can feel sleep creeping in, hears the downpour outside urging him to rest, and he’s tempted to give in.
He’s spent a good amount of time fighting his heavy eyelids to look at her through the darkness of her room. They haven’t shared many words since she first opened her window for him, but he doesn’t truly mind; he likes watching Annabeth. And he feels like a total creep for it, just a bit, but there’s something warm about watching her, cataloguing all her little habits and moods. He isn't really that great of a student, but in Annabeth he’s a quick study.
She’s humming along to Norah Jones from her desk now, cross-legged in her uncomfortable office chair and hunched over her table, squinting through her dim desk light at the mess of papers scattered across the surface. He’s a bit concerned she’ll sink under the weight of temples and cabins and the critique of intemperate gods, but he knows she’s carried heavier burdens, ones that don’t set her hot streak of competitiveness on fire. She whines about it sometimes, words muffled into his hoodie or distorted over a phoneline, but he knows better than to think there’s any part of her that hates it.
“I’ve got to finish this one little thing up, then I’m all yours,” she promised then sealed with a kiss when he had crawled in through her window. “Ten minutes tops.”
It’s been an hour, and while he appreciates the sight of her so focused—biting lightly on the end of her pencil which makes him feel so embarrassed at how heavily he swallows looking at her—he’d much rather feel her against his side. He wants her to turn off that light and come lay her head on his shoulder, wants to feel her weight as solid and real as a hand in a river. He's honestly not above whining, just enough for her to take pity but not too much for her to roll her eyes and tell him to stop being a baby.
She stops humming and the room is suddenly too quiet. He wants to hear her and so he speaks without thinking.
“Do you ever think about leaving?” he asks, mouth suddenly dry as he turns his head away from her. She has a popcorn ceiling, he notices for the first time.
“Leaving," she repeats, testing the word out like foreign candy. "Leaving New York?"
“Yeah.” Gaze trained up, trying to map constellations in the bumps of the ceiling.
“To do what?” Her and her questions. Painting her full picture from details coaxed like sap from a tree.
Nothing, he thinks, then everything. Far away from the grip of the gods, wriggled out from the tight threads wrapped around them. Anywhere, with her.
They’ll drive out west, run along the Canadian border till they reach Seattle. They’ll live off of greasy food from cheap diners and he’ll conjure up the money to splurge a bit on slightly fancier than normal motels every night because it’s the least she deserves. She’ll make him pull over every two seconds to stare at a dilapidated building or to say hi to every barn animal they pass by. Her knuckles will turn white against her seatbelt each time he makes a turn too fast or switches lanes without signalling. They’ll get so sick of each other that they’ll sit in silence with nothing but the CD he burnt full of songs that remind him of her, but her hand will stay warm in his over the console.
Under Seattle's cover of clouds, they’ll walk along the Pacific and then sit on a pier. He'll pretend he doesn't know any of the constellations and ask her to point them out. She'll see right through it and roll her eyes, but chart the stars for him anyway. They’ll feel the ocean floor beneath their feet and he’ll tell every animal within a 5 mile radius to fuck off and they’ll stay in their bubble at the bottom of the Pacific, for just a bit.
“I don’t know,” he says. “To go wherever the wind takes us.” A joke he tries to play off too obviously that it comes off as genuine.
He hears her joints pop, the squeak of her desk chair, the rustling of papers. She turns her light off and the room is coated in blue.
“Detailed plan you've got there.” Her mattress sinks beneath him and he finally looks at her.
Her eyes are bright and hair loose around her collarbones. He likes her collarbones. A lot actually. Like, a weird amount he’s kind of scared she’ll think he’s a freak if he tells her and so he doesn't. She can probably tell. It's where he always rests his hand when he wraps an arm around her, awkward but gentle, because that's something he can just do now. That’s where her ringlets brush up against now and so it’s not really his fault his eyes follow the curls there.
She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, not terribly rigid or straight-backed, but restrained. He doesn't want her restraint, he wants her sprawled on his chest, wants to hear her pulse erratic against his and feel her breathing mellow out.
He doesn’t answer her question, just opens his arms wide. She looks at the open space with narrowed eyes. He wants to tell her it’s real, she doesn’t have to fight for her place here, so he tugs her hand forward. For once, she doesn’t go down fighting.
She's careful above him, though, not fully sinking her weight down. "You want to leave New York?"
He shrugs, tugging her closer into his chest. He wonders if she can feel his own pulse race. Is it too fast? Is she counting the beats and thinking he's a complete total loser for how erratic it is, much too fast to have sped up in the minute since she's finally entered his space? He breathes her in, his mind chanting relax relax relax relax.
"No, I mean, I don't know." His words jumble over the noise sneaking in through the small crack in her window. His city is loud as it always is and tonight, it sounds like it's screaming at him to stay. "Not forever, just a break."
"A vacation," she supplies, resting her cheek against collar more surely, nose tickling the side of his neck. He stays still, lets her find herself against him.
"Would it be narcissistic if I said we of all people deserve it?"
Lips brushed against his neck, soft enough to be imperceptible if he was capable of being normal about her touch. "Not at all." Breathy but sure, a lower pitch he rarely hears from her, reserved for when she can't see him looking at her.
"I've always wanted to backpack across Asia," she says.
"Really?" The rain picks up and he wants to stay under its cover for as long as it takes to bare their secrets to each other. For all his watching, there's more to uncover, more to excavate out of her, more for time to erode.
A pause, a smile against his skin that burns. "No," she confesses with a small laugh. “I don’t know why I said that. But I think it would be good.”
“Me, you, an open road, and our whole lives stuffed in a backpack. Sounds familiar.”
“Come on, it would be fun. Think about all the good food we’d eat.”
He hums an agreement, opens his palm more surely against her back. “Lots of old architecture.”
“You know the way to my heart, Jackson.” Another joke played off too obviously that it teeters on genuine. It doesn't seem as embarrassing when it's her. "We'll visit every country."
"Every country?"
"Every country. We'll do a Euro trip too," she says. "The Mediterranean."
"The land of our people," he jokes.
"I was thinking Lake Como. I want to see where they filmed Star Wars."
"Fuck outta here, Annabeth."
"What?" She laughs as she asks like she always does when he's about to go on the same spiel. He decides he'll save her the rant.
"I can't believe you even called those godawful prequels Star Wars."
She shrugs against him. "Well, there's no accounting for poor taste."
He feels her stuttering breath against him, holding in a laugh, and wants nothing more than to set it free. "You spent your formative years just watching Hercules on repeat in the Big House, you're barely qualified to talk about taste."
"Sometimes we watched Clash of the Titans."
"Right, sorry. Movies about two different sons of Zeus, how diverse," he says dryly. She laughs softly, more a puff of breath than anything, but it rings out to him.
"Whatever." She taps the pad of her finger against his shoulder, two short taps. "So. Every country in Asia, then Lake Como?"
"Do I get a say in this?"
"Of course you do. I'm letting you agree to it, Percy–" she squawks as he tickles her side, wrenching herself out of his grasp.
He laughs, "okay, sorry, sorry. I'll stop, come back."
"You're so annoying," she says, lowering herself back onto him. She sprawls herself fully over his chest—head turned to the side, legs tangled with his—he notes with some satisfaction. A lot of satisfaction. He wraps his arms around her carefully. Not strangling, not loose, a Goldilocks medium that he hopes she won't hate. "Where do you want to go?"
"All of Asia then Lake Como."
He can almost feel her eye roll. "Okay. Where do you want to go?" she repeats.
A pause, he messes up her curls by carding his fingers through them. It won't matter. She's going to wash her hair tomorrow, he knows. “Seattle first.”
“Seattle?”
“Seattle.” A nod she won’t see.
“What’s in Seattle?”
“Okay, stop saying Seattle. It doesn’t sound real anymore,” he says and she laughs into him. “And I don’t know, I think it would be good,” he echoes.
He wonders if she can feel him swallow. Her fingers trace spirals on his chest, just above his heart. She’s quiet for a long moment and he almost panics that she really is creeped out by how fast it races beneath her touch, then she finally speaks. “Okay. We'll go to the city we won't name, then from there we sail to Japan, then every country in Asia.”
“You get seasick,” he comments, low into her hair.
“Maybe your dad will take pity if I’m with you.” She doesn’t sound quite convinced.
"Maybe. How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Sailing usually takes a month at minimum.”
“I'll get us there in a day.”
“Alive?”
“Probably.”
“Probably,” she repeats slowly, syllables stretched out far enough for the rain to skip in the gaps.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says and he feels her sharp inhale and for a terrifying moment thinks he said something wrong, but she noses his jaw as she lifts her head to look up at him. Her chin digs into his chest, a small smile on her face. Even in the dark, he feels pinned by her quicksilver eyes. Intense and cold, but not unwelcome.
“Awfully confident,” she teases.
“You’re rubbing off on me.” He shrugs as best he can under her.
“You don’t seem all that upset about it," she says.
She reaches a hand up, gently smoothing her thumb between his brows, which must mean he’s been furrowing them tightly enough for her to stop thinking it looks cute and start thinking he's going to go greyer from stress. “Why would I be? You're you.”
She pauses, hand resting against the side of his face. Her eyes are wide and shifty. She’s trying to figure out what to say, words running through her mind a mile a minute, he can tell.
He flushes under her gaze, fighting down the urge to turn his head away and feel her scratchy pillowcase against his skin. Instead he lets her survey him, evening the score of how long they've spent watching each other.
“I’m never sure,” she starts, measured and careful, “if you know what you do to me when you say things like that.”
"What?" A thumb between his brows again. Annabeth's looking at him like he hung the moon and he's just a bit confused why. He lets out a laugh, a weak exhale more than anything.
"What did I say?" He asks before instantly regretting asking because if he's sure about anything right now, it's that response was most definitely not the rom-comesque followup she probably wanted to hear after whatever it is she's biting her lip, very distractingly, for.
She doesn't say anything as she places her palms against him squarely to lift herself up and untangle her legs, and he thinks he finally did it. He finally proved to her that she deserves better than anything he could give her and all it took was asking one stupid question. And probably because he has an abnormal heart rate too, he's sure. But she doesn't make a run for it, instead she brackets her knees around his hips and it takes everything in him to stay so very still as she stretches back over him, hands soft cupping his face.
"Oh. Okay, hi," he says when she brings her face close to his, a breath away.
"Hi," she says, then her lips are on his, slow and soft like they have all the time in the world for this.
She pulls away a bit and he chases her. He drops a hand to her waist, firm against her side, and brings the other one up around the back of her head. He's finally gained control of some bodily and brain function. Annabeth's kisses have a habit of doing that. He wonders if it's an Athena kid thing, like she's siphoning all his knowledge to store away in that brilliant brain of hers. She smiles against him before biting at his lip and he blanks right out again.
When she pulls away this time, he lets her go, breathless. Her lips are pink and swollen and he realizes he did that, she let him do that, with a jolt of pride.
She's looking at him not quite expectantly but almost hopeful, and for once the sight of her gives him dread. He doesn't know what he looks like to her, trying to figure out the right thing to say to keep her looking at him like that. He's running through all the 80s romcoms his mom always had playing in the background for some ounce of help and cursing himself for never paying attention.
"Uh," he says. Horrible start. "That was nice." Horrible end. He's never before wished for thunderstorms, but in this instant, just loud enough to cover his words, it sure would've been nice.
He's surprised when she presses quick kisses to him again, his lips, cheeks, jaw, a trail that burns hotter than the Styx. When she pulls back she doesn't look annoyed or like she's about to push him onto the floor, just pleased.
"I like you," she pauses and blinks at him. "Okay, sorry, I don't know what I'm saying. You're just really… sweet. Fuck, I don't know," she laughs, awkward and light like she wants to bury herself in a hole. That makes two of them stuck in the weirdness, but they're there together and it beats wallowing in it alone.
"I like you, too," he says softly, the hand on her waist moving up and down slowly. "A lot."
"I know," she says before wincing. "Not that I'm that prideful. It's just, you say all these sweet things and you don't even realize how good you are, I don't know. I want you to know I really like you too. You know?"
He nods, biting his cheek to keep a grin—one that would look so awkwardly large it's creepy—at bay, but it's Annabeth, so he smiles the creepy smile anyway.
"I know you like me too. You don't have to prove it to me, Annabeth." Low and solemn, a promise that draws a smile out of her that matches his own.
"So I should stop kissing you?"
"That's so not what I said."
"I don't know, it kind of sounded like that."
"If I ever—and I mean ever, Annabeth—tell you not to kiss me, you need to stab me with your dagger because I've been replaced by an imposter."
She nods, face serious. "Don't leave any strands of hair lying around." Her eyes shift around suspiciously. "They could make a Percy clone."
"They could make a Percy clone," he agrees, voice conspiratory. "We don't need another me."
"I don't know, I don't really mind." She shrugs.
"How are you on my imposter's side right now?"
"Another Percy. It's honestly kinda hot."
"Annabeth!" he exclaims and she covers his mouth with her palm.
"Shhh," she laughs. "Sister Mary's going to come knock on my door and expel me. She's got a killer boyfriend-raydar."
He licks her hand and she jerks it back, wiping it on his shirt. "Percy, you're gross. She's going to push you out the window, seriously."
"Just in time for my imposter to take my place, then?"
She rolls her eyes with a smile. "Fine, you baby. I like you more than your imposter and you're the only Percy for me."
He nods. "Thank you. I'd choose you over your imposter too."
"Pinnacle of romance right here," she half-croons, pressing her lips against him again and he fists a hand in her hair.
"Uh huh," he says against her as he pulls back. "We've got everyone beat for number one couple of all time."
"Obviously," she says then her lips on his again and they're soft and intense then everywhere and the last thing on his mind is the comfort of her stupid mattress when she's got him on his back like this.