Archive of Our Own

Ok so it happens kinda sorta like this. Percy somehow forgets about the summer solstice. Like completely. 

Katie had mentioned the annual city trip (day only and Olympus visit for those under 14, night before monster-killing and frolicking around the city for those over) before he left camp after he dropped them off from a funeral deep in Pennsylvania. She asked if he would meet up with them, even though he wasn’t really planning on staying at camp, and at his maybe  Katie had frowned and Annabeth had rolled her eyes and said her goodbyes, pulling Katie along with her.

He’d almost started an argument about it, they’ve been putting each other in that kind of mood lately, but they’d made it all the way back to camp without anything so he shut his mouth and drove off.

He'd spent the whole drive home, and the better part of his evening, playing every interaction with her that day over and over again in his head, clearing his head of pretty much everything besides Annabeth. Her big brown eyes, the way her hands cut through the air when she spoke about architecture, her silvery voice and the sarcastic pitches it took on when she was angry. The thought of her overshadowed like 80% of that trip.

So, he doesn’t remember the solstice. Completely forgets it, actually. When he finds himself walking down the street around sunset on the last day of spring, he’s not going to meet Charlie to hit up arcades, or with Annabeth to finally see that movie, or walking through [insert wealthy neighborhood] with the Stoll twins as they pick the pocket of any guy they catch being a douche and call it Demi-divine justice. Instead, he’s on his way to a party. A last day of school pool party, to be exact, held on the roof of Jacqueline W’s penthouse. (Blame the literal week of January snowstorms and the subsequent ice for the incredibly late end time. He still doesn’t know which god is responsible for that, but he promises they’ll be having words when he does.)

You wouldn’t think he would be super big on parties, and neither had he, but this year he’s found himself at most of the ones he’s told he should show up to (which is weirdly a lot, minimum every other weekend is eaten up). The teenage madness of it all feels just a little better when a teenager is all you’ll ever be. 

So, he’s taken his least favorite bus and walked about three of the six blocks he has to pass through to meet Lucien and Jonah halfway when something in the air shifts, and he’s filled with the feeling that he’s forgotten something that matters. Not unique for him, but especially potent right now.

It stops him completely in his tracks, and is so strong he can’t help but do a routine glance around in search of a monster, or worse, a god. Instead he finds something both 100 times better and 10 times worse. There, one block behind him and across the street, is Annabeth Chase, sitting on a restaurants patio fence and laughing at something a boy he’s never seen before is saying.

In an instant he’s changing course, ignoring a honking car as he crosses the street a great many feet away from any crosswalk and walking towards her. When he gets into earshot she’s laughing her deep, bubbling laugh again, and the boy is laughing too. “Stop laughing,” he says. “It’s not funny. I coulda died that day.” His voice has the heavy, late afternoon shadow of a southern accent stretching over his vowels. 

“You could’ve,” Annabeth answers, sounding everything and nothing like herself. “And it woulda been really, really funny.”

“You real heartless, you know that?”

Annabeth shrugs. “I’ve been told once or twice,” she admits. “But if she was that mad about one, how’d you end with a whole sleeve?”

He shrugs. “I just kinda kept going, she got less mad every time, then I got one with her initials, she ain’t gave me shit since. Got one for Mimi’s House too.”

He can hear the grin in Annabeth’s voice as she says, “You’re lying.”

He shakes his head. “Mm-mm, Ms. Sharon gave me a raise when I showed her.”

She immediately grabs his arm and starts searching it, turning it over and scanning it. Percy walks faster. “This one?” she asks.

The boy shakes his head. 

Annabeth starts to run two fingers down his arm, clearly going through one by one, and Percy reaches his limit, finally calling out from just a little too far- “Annabeth!”

She stops searching the boys arm immediately, looking around to find who said that until she finally makes eye contact with Percy. He raises a hand in a stiff kind of wave before jogging even more stiffly up to them.

“Hi,” he says, looking right at Annabeth and ignoring the guy with her.

Annabeth hops off the railing. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

He squints, trying to decipher if she’s being sarcastic. “I live here.”

She gives him a profoundly unimpressed look. “You live in Manhattan, this is Brooklyn. What are you doing here?” 

Percy shrugs. “I’m on my way to a party. I noticed you across the street, I thought I’d say hi. So uh, hi.”

She waves slightly sarcastically. “Hey.”

“Who’s this?” Percy nods towards the boy next to her, taking a better look at him. His skin is a tawny brown, the same color as Rachel’s, maybe a little darker, but instead of being coated in freckles his skin is smooth and unblemished apart from the ink revealed by the rolled up sleeves of the button up. 

“I’m Roman, nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand, the tattooed one, for a shake. Percy looks at it for a second before sticking his hands in his pockets and nodding in acknowledgment. He pretends he doesn’t see Annabeth give him a slight stink eye. Roman retracts his hand. “So uh, how do you know Bettie?”

“Summer camp,” Aannabeth answers before he can. “At that nature school I used to go to. We’ve gone together every year since we were 12.” She looks Percy right in the eye, frowning a little. “Well, every year but this one.”

Percy resists the urge to roll his eyes at her, instead asking, “How do you guys know each other?”

“We went to school together, ‘fore she moved away from Virginia,” Roman explains. “We used to carpool to our afterschool thing.”

“We lost touch when my stepmom decided to have me move schools,” Annabeth explains, rounding out her story.

Roman nods. “Yeah, craziest thing happened though, we was visiting some family friends in San Francisco for Winter Break and we ran into her on the street. Cilli recognized her somehow.” He turns a slightly goofy smile onto Annabeth. “Thank God for her.”

“Cilli?” Percy asks.

“His twin sister,” Annabeth explains.

“Oh. Cool.”

“Mhm,” she agrees. “So. Your party.” Annabeth lightly elbows Roman, who jumps a bit then nods. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says, “we wouldn’t want to keep you.”

Percy shrugs. “It’s gonna go all night, I can get there whenever.”

Annabeth’s eyes narrow and Percy remains stoic. Roman shuffles uncomfortably. “I’m gonna go inside,” he says after a moment. 

Annabeth nods quickly, offering him a quick glance and tense smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“For sure,” he says, before giving Percy an upwards nod. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Sure,” Percy answers, not even giving him a smile. Both him and Annabeth watch the guy walk inside and then it’s them, alone. Or as alone as you can be on the street.

Annabeth looks away from him for a moment, gathering her thoughts with a miniature beleaguered sigh and fuck if she doesn’t look beautiful. The more feminine at camp usually go all out for the trip into the city, and Annabeth isn’t an exception. She’s wearing a too big camp shirt, collar cut off and cropped much higher than the few other cut up camp shirts she owns, and a tight white tank top that covers just a bit more, exposing the vast majority of her muscled torso. A pair of equally oversized overalls with little gray vines sewn on the folded up hems hang low and limp on her hips, exposing the band of a pair of boxer shorts. He remembers watching her add the stitching, lazily eating stolen strawberries and dozing in the sun as she worked in pleased silence.

Her face is as beautiful as ever, nearly shimmering, even with how carefully, thoughtfully blank it is. It was even more beautiful when she was drenched in that genuine joy. With the way he’d been looking at her, he figures Roman thought so too.

“So,” Percy says rather than stewing in that, “was that your boyfriend or something?”

Annabeth looks at him, a disbelieving almost-sneer on her face. “Don’t even start,” she says, shaking her head.

He shrugs, sticking his hands in pockets. “I’m not starting anything.”

Annabeth puts a hand on her bare waist and shifts her weight in that direction, making the bangles on her wrist clank and mingle. Percy barely stops himself from looking her up and down, taking even longer sips of the sight of her. “How’s Rachel?” she asks.

Percy holds back an eye roll. “You don’t start.”

Annabeth shrugs in an imitation of him. “I'm not starting anything.”

That’s when he realizes, that weird not quite her sound from when she was talking to and around Roman was an accent. Not thick at all, but noticeable if you knew her normal voice. Thalia once told him she used to have one, not heavy, but constant and speaking to the rural isolation her father loved in theory and hated in practice. She guessed it had flown the coop over the years. It occasionally came back for visits, when Annabeth was dead on her feet tired or out of her mind angry or sad or happy, but even then it was only in a limited capacity. Percy had come to associate it with a sort of strength of feeling that worked to tinge this evenings visit with a certain sourness.

“So uhh,” he continues, “who’s here with you from camp?”

Annabeth bafflingly looks even more annoyed. The boyfriend thing, he admits it, he was being kind of antagonistic, but this one was actually an attempt at conversation. “I can take care of myself you know.”

Percy bristles. “No one said you couldn't, I was just wondering.”

Annabeth leans back on the railing and rolls her right shoulder. She’d really screwed up a muscle there once. It was her most prominent sore spot. She said it smarted most when her mood was downturned. “Malcolm and three of my sisters are inside.”

“Which ones?”

“The triplets.”

The triplets (while having very different mothers) all arrived at camp together on the third day of summer session on their collective birthday at the age of 10. Percy smiles a little. “I forgot they’re fourteen this year. They’re still like 6th graders in my head.”

Annabeth cracks her first smile. “I know, I felt so old when I heard them arguing about who got to wear their favorite shorts this morning.”

“I bet it was Kari.”

“It was Kari.”

Percy has to chuckle. “Let me guess, Hailey and Lana got so mad at each other-“

“That they let Kari have them just to make the other one more mad,” she finished, smile peeking through “Yeah, camps always gonna be camp, nothing’s really changed.” 

“Guess I haven’t missed as much as I thought then,” Percy says, smiling, meaning it, but once the words are floating through the air he knows they’re the wrong ones. “I just mean-“

“I know what you mean,” she says, the hint of happiness leaving, turning her head away from him slightly. The large white section in front she’s allowed to be free from her ponytail falls from behind her ear to rest in front of her face.

Percy sighs. “Annabeth please…”

“Please what?”

“You know you don’t have to do this every time you see me. We can have normal conversations sometimes.”

“Well like you said, you’re not around much, I might as well get the important stuff out the way.”

“When did I say I’m not around much?”

“Context clues. Also it’s just straight up true.”

“Hey Anna- Percy?” They look over to see Malcolm standing at the door, eyes wide, smile growing in his face. “Oh shit, Roman really was describing you.” He walks over and claps Percy on the shoulder. “What are you doing here man? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Just passing by,” Percy tells him. “I saw Annabeth and thought I’d say hi.”

“Yeah and he was just leaving, good timing Malcolm.” Annabeth says, looping her arm through Malcolm’s. “Come on, they’re gonna start back up soon.”

He looks at her strangely as she begins to drag him off. “Oh- ok? Yeah, let’s go I guess. Bye Percy, I’ll see you, I guess.”

Percy waves, trying not to feel to much like a kicked dog. Annabeth pushes Malcolm forward, not responding to his hushed, confused whispers. He starts to get angry, almost, but then she, like an object falls from the sky, turns her head to glance back at him as if pulled by something irresistible. There is a disappointment and frustration in her eyes so palpable he finds himself stepping forward, shouting, “Can I hang with you guys?”

Annabeth and Malcolm stop walking and turn their heads around in hilarious sync. “Huh?” Annabeth says.

Percy finishes making his way towards them, sneakers smacking the pavement. “Can I hang with you guys? Like, inside.”

Annabeth furrows her brow. “I thought you said you had to be at a party.”

“I do,” he confirms. “But they’ll be alright.”

Annabeth huffs out a laugh. “And I won’t?”

“Who said anything about you?” he questions, stepping closer to Malcolm and putting on a fake pitying expression. “How is my good friend Malcolm meant to get on without me?”

Malcolm hops into action immediately, nodding vigorously. “Yeah, how am I supposed to get through trivia night without Percy to lift my spirits if I get an answer wrong.”

“Like you’d be wrong.”

“But he could,” Percy insists. Malcolm nods without hesitation. “Anything could happen.”

Annabeth narrows her eyes at both of them. “Are you about to gang up on me?”

Percy lets his head fall to the side, his smile growing. “Depends, will it work?”

Annabeth tries and fails to completely hold down her smile, turning away from him to open the door. “Just come inside.”

Percy’s grin only widens and he rushes to take the door from her, bowing. “After you.” Malcolm makes a sweeping gesture of agreement and then she really can’t hold down her grin.

“You guys annoy me, did you know that?” 

“We do,” they intone, following her inside. 

The interior is comfortingly generic, like a good TV show set. Warm lighting, dark wood everything, distressed black leather seats and an assortment of aged signs and framed pictures lining the walls. 

The orange shirts they give at camp may be objectively kind of ugly, but they do their job. Despite the surprisingly large (and surprisingly old, there’s not a single customer below 25) crowd in the restaurant, Percy spots their group immediately in the line of tall rectangular tables crowded with stools. The three girls and Roman.

He pretends not to feel irritated when Roman brightens a frankly shameless amount when he notices Annabeth has entered, and he tries not to feel too joyful when the smile slightly dims when he sees Percy. The girls, of course, do the opposite, waving and grinning.

“Hey Percy,” they chorus, voices carrying across the restaurant as he dodges his way across it.

He grins back at them. “Hey guys,” he says when he reaches them, pulling them all into one big hug and only laughing and holding tighter when they squeal and try to escape. Kari lingers close when the other two have escaped, rubbing her (eternally sensitive) nose.

“Gods, whose perfume cloud did you get caught in?”

“Hey, I just got off the subway, cut me some slack,” he says to avoid mentioning that he knows exactly whose overly strong perfume cloud(s) he was directly sprayed with in revenge a couple hours ago, and one of them has red hair, green eyes, and does not need to be mentioned any more than she already has been. 

“Ooo, I wanna take the subway. We took taxis here because Annabeth didn’t wanna deal with it,” Hailey sighs. 

“No, that was Malcolm, I said no because there was a situation down there and I didn’t wanna get caught up in a place that busy,” Annabeth denied. She settled at the end of the table, body pushed up against it so she wouldn’t be too in the way. Percy stood on one side of her (and the table) and Roman stood across from him. He didn’t look too happy about that but then again neither did Percy.

A waiter arrives just then with two trays of food and everyone cheers and thanks him as he puts it down in front of them. Percy’s eyes widen a bit. “Damn, how’d you pay for all this and taxis?”

“Chiron gave us $100 each,” Malcolm explains through a full mouth, “and we begged a guy to let us all in one taxi so we wouldn’t have to pay more.”

“You’re joking. Last year he only gave us $50!” Percy says.

“The farm did like crazy good this year. And he said he wanted us to have as much fun as we could, he only gave quests to a couple of us,” Hailey reports. The campers at the table fall quiet, and Percy’s leg begins to bounce. This is why he couldn’t do it this year, being at camp, being around people from camp. It was too easy to slip and say something that reminds yourself and everyone in earshot of what’s coming and next thing he knows he’s stuffed in a bathroom stall, trying not to let his existential dread grow into a panic attack.

Roman is good for one (ONE) thing he guesses, because he steamrolls the silence by snatching a wing and letting out a nearly obnoxious sound of pleasure when he bites into it. “Holy shit, Bettie, you gotta try this.”

Everyone starts to descend on the plates, Percy included. No one complains until he subtly tries to snatch a sip of soda from Hailey and she puts her foot down and tells him to get his own. He pouts exaggeratedly at her, but she just pouts back and manages to make him feel bad.

He starts to look around the busy space for a waiter but they all seem occupied. 

“I don’t think you gon’ be able to flag down a waiter in this mess,” Roman comments. “You might wanna just go to the bar, I bet they’ll pour it there.”

Percy, being very mature (and by that he means not wanting to give Annabeth immaturity ammunition), doesn’t roll his eyes as he says, “I think I’ll take my chances.”

“Oh, if you do go though can you get me a cherry coke?” and it’s Annabeth so his lips are forming the shape for sure before he even thinks too hard about it.

He feels Roman’s victorious eyes on him as he dodges his way through the crowd, walking up to the bar. What a dick. The sound of the guy getting on the mic in front of the bar and announcing five minutes until the end of the halftime of the trivia competition flies right over his head, but everyone cheering does not.

Percy pushes his way to the front of the crowded bar and presses up against it so he can’t be pushed.

His eyes find the blackboard carrying the specials and announcements behind the busy bartender and between the shelves and shelves of bottles. Trivia Night-8:00-9:30 w/ halftime at 8:50 Prizes at 10:00.

Shit. If the trivia night already went til 10:00 (which really meant he’d be out of here closer to 10:15) and he had promised Farrah and Jasmine (who scared him) that he’d show up to the party and stay minimum an hour, and make his way home, there was no way in Hades he’d make curfew. 

This realization must show on his face because after he asks for his sprite and cherry coke the bartender asks, “You good, kid?” 

“Yeah, just wishing I had a phone. I need to call my mom.”

The woman’s smile shifts only slightly, but her eyes light up. She leans in, familiar and suddenly conspiratorial. “Let me tell you a secret. You see that phone back there?”

She nods her head towards the little hall that leads to the back door and what he guessed was a storage room. Percy plays a brief game of where’s Waldo before his eyes fall on a cherry payphone on the wall. He nods, and her smile begins to show cigarette yellowed teeth. “It doesn’t look like it, but it actually still works. Doesn’t even need a coin.”

Percy angles his head skeptically. “Wait for real?”

“Is there a reason I’d lie?”

“A sense of sadism? Just for fun? I don’t know, ma’am, I’ve been pranked for some really weird reasons.”

The bartender, thankfully, does not rescind her offer. In fact, she laughs at him before she sends him on his way. There’s even more people dodging, then finally he reaches the phone.

He puts in Julian’s number first (though he learns he has it written down wrong on his list of numbers he takes when he goes out phone-less when he gets yelled at by an old guy for ‘crank calling’). When he finally gets him, he gives a quick explanation about running into a friend and deciding to hang with her and her siblings, ignores Jas in the background trying to ask who the ‘friend’ is, and promises to catch up with them later. 

Then his moms number, which he knows by heart. Behind him, trivia night gets louder and rowdier.

“Hello?”

“Hey mom.”

“Oh hi sweetie, is something wrong?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to let you know plans changed and, well…”

“There wasn’t a monster attack was there? Are you hurt?”

“No, mom, nothing like that I promise. It’s just, I was on my way to the party, and then I ran into some people from camp and I was uh, kinda wondering if I could stay out past my curfew. Please?”

Silence, the clear wondering if he was serious about getting his already extended summer curfew extended, then, “Percy Ambrose Jackson-”

“Please, I'm with Annabeth,” he pleads, the words coming out quickly, almost all as one.

He thinks he hears a snicker on the other end of the like at that, and at first he wants to speed past it, but something makes him ask, “Are you laughing?” 

”Nope,” answers his clearly-trying-not-to-laugh mother. “I suppose I might be able to overlook curfew for a few hours. I was thinking about going to bed soon anyway, and what I don’t know won’t hurt me.”

“For real?”

“Ye- Oh, wait a second honey, I think dinner’s at the door.”

Percy sighs and lets the phone fall to his shoulder. 

A waiter walks out of the kitchen and begins to walk in his groups direction with a tray full of drinks and food, and a bunch of guys in matching shirts across the room cheer when they see him. Annabeth, despite probably seeing him coming, doesn’t move from where she stands in the walkway immediately. Percy figures she’s just waiting until the last second, like she does sometimes, more concerned with writing the answer to the bonus question onto the whiteboard than her surroundings. 

Roman, who clearly doesn’t know this, grabs her around the waist to pull her out of the way, and instead of doing so and immediately letting go, he lingers. He just lets his hand sit on her bare waist. Percy thinks he even sees him tap his fingers on her skin. Who the hell does that?

And Annabeth lets him, even looks up to ask him a question just before he drops his hand, smiling a bit when he laughs at it, smiling wider when everyone laughs at his answer.

Percy starts to bounce his leg impatiently. What’s taking his mom so long?

“Percy?” Her voice comes faintly. He rushes to put the phone back to his ear. 

“Mhm, yeah, I’m here.”

“Oh good.” He hears rustling through takeout bags. “But yeah, I’m fine with you staying out a little longer, gods know you’d just be up all night in your room anyway, but this will not become a habit, am I clear?”

“Mhm.”

“Ok. Make smart choices, watch your surroundings, and, and I want you to listen to what I’m about to say.”

“I always listen to you.”

“Good answer, but I mean it. Spend some time with Annabeth.” He hears the siblings of the girl in question cheer behind him. She got the question right, obviously but knowing them they’d cheer for this too. “You and that girl are gonna be the death of me, you know that?”

His cheeks flush and he finds himself turning away, huddling into the wall. “Mom!”

“I’m serious love you Percy, bye.”

“Love you,” he mutters, reluctant to speak at all. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

She hangs up, and Percy puts the phone back on the wall. He gets his lemonade and Annabeth’s cherry Coke from off the counter, nodding in thanks to the bartender before dodging his way back towards the table. He reaches both arms between Roman and Annabeth to put down the drinks and successfully creates an opening large enough to seperate them (even if it does mean he has to stand at a corner).

“Got the drinks, somehow.”

“Mm, thanks,” Annabeth tells him, grabbing hers. 

There’s a new girl across the table from him, cut from the same sandy brown and big curled cloth as the boy beside him, and she nods in acknowledgment. Same accent too.

“Hey, I’m Priscilla-Jay, but you can call me Cilli,” she says. “Real nice to meet you. I’m Roman’s sister.”

He nods back. “Percy, cool to meet you too.”

Annabeth snorts at Priscilla-Jay’s accent. “Gods, you two are country.”

Priscilla-Jay giggles at this, eyebrow raised. “Oh we’re country Anna-Elizabeth Jolie Chase.”

“You and this Anna-Elizabeth stuff, let me breathe,” Annabeth begs. 

“Wait your middle name is actually Jolie?” Percy asks. “I thought Mr. D was making that up.” 

She groans and drops her head so her hair partially hides her face, but she’s holding back giggles. “This is why I don’t go anywhere with y’all,” she tells Priscilla-Jay and Roman, “you just like telling the world my business.”

“Sorry, Anna-Elizabeth,” Roman says, ahead wagging, leaning in front of Percy a little to get just a bit closer to Annabeth. She pushes his head away, rolling her eyes and struggling not to smile too wide.

“You’re so stupid,” she tells him. The coke curdles in Percy’s stomach. Is it weird to be jealous of your friend calling someone else stupid?

Percy leans in even closer, so it would be just awkward enough that Roman kind of has to keep his distance. He tries not to get too wrapped up in the fact that she smells really good. “And your name is really Anna-Elizabeth? You’ve been keeping so many secrets from us.”

Hailey pulls away from her conversation with her sisters, nodding. “Yeah, what’s that about?” 

“Oh my gosh,” Priscilla-Jay says, giggling, “when we was little and we’d go to the stables for after-school stuff, there was this one lady who used to swear up into heaven and down into hell  that her name was Anna-Elizabeth. We corrected her so many times, she swore to God Annabeth was just a nickname.”

“Man, bump used to,” Roman remarked. “The other day she asked me if, ‘I remembered that little cutie Anna-Elizabeth?’” His voice takes on a high, but somehow raspy quality and Annabeth laughs. 

Her voice is muffled by the Cherry coke at her lips when she mutters, “She still hasn’t retired?”

“No, she be talking ‘bout some ‘how could I leave y’all, I love it here, it’s my calling.” Again, the voice makes her giggle.

“Is it bad to say I kinda miss her?”

“Yes,” Priscilla-Jay says at the same time Roman promises her, “No.”

Roman scoffs. “Mind you, she was in shambles when we thought she was gonna have to retire for medical reasons,” he tells them. “She looked like SpongeBob when he thought Gary ran away.”

Both Priscilla-Jay and Annabeth burst into laughter, and Hailey giggles before fully checking out of the situation, going back to talking with her siblings. 

“Yeah ‘cause I want her to retire, not die,” Priscilla-Jay explains through her laughter. “We’re not all heartless and nonchalant like you.”

“Bruh, I did not get class poet at Monarch Elementary 3 years in a row for you to try and play me like this. I am a sensitive soul.”

“Says the guy who almost pushed me off a trolley,” Annabeth reminds him.

“It’s called a hug. God forbid I be excited to see you.”

They all erupt into laughter again and Percy begins to regret his choice to stand between them, just a bit. It’s not that he resents this, not really. He’s had enough late night conversations with her to know that the period of her life they’re talking about was often very, very shitty for her. She deserves something from then she can be nostalgic about, she’s more than earned that.

But just as it had at points made him squirm to be alone with her and Luke, or her and Thalia, or even some of the other people who beat him to camp, it is hard to think of Annabeth as a person so seperate from himself. Like obviously she’s her own person and everything but he’s also her best friend and if he could memorize every detail about who she is, about how she’s become it, he would. But Annabeth is Annabeth and there are always gonna be a couple of big locked doors on her heart that seem to deny him entry as long as there are places where their pasts sit far, far apart.

Plus, honestly, he just doesn’t like even the idea that someone else who likes her knows her better than he does, even though he knows in actuality that’s not true. 

He takes the (risky) opportunity to duck out from between them and across the table under the guise of wanting more nachos so they can talk, but regrets it when Roman goes right back to being the (apparently touchy) person he is.

He pushes up the sleeves of the long sleeved tee he’d thrown on under his oversized jersey, unsure if it’s the frustration or sudden influx of somehow more people that’s making his body heat rise.

“Damn, you work out?” Priscilla-Jay asks him, eyeing his biceps.

He jumps. He hadn’t realized she’d been paying attention to him at all, that any of them would have really. “Uh yeah, I do,” Percy says.”

She nods. “I can tell. You have really nice forearms.”

“Oh, thanks?”

She giggles. At what, he’s not really sure. “Bet you hear that a lot though.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, not really.”

“That’s surprising. You know, you have really nice hair too.” She stares at a curl hanging down over his eyebrows, beginning to twist a face framing strand of her own around her finger. “You have a curl routine?”

Odd question, but he shakes his head. “No, I just put water on it and throw conditioner in there and that’s about it.”

She props her elbow up on the table and puts the side of her face in her hand, “Cool.”

“I guess?”

She chuckles a little. “So, Annabeth told me you go to summer camp with her, but how come you’re not wearing one of them shirts? Not that you don’t look really-“ her eyes fall to his forearms again “good in that one, I’m just surprised anyone would miss out on hot couture like that.”

He shrugs. “Oh, I’m not going to camp this year. I was just in the neighborhood, I was on my way to a party but, you know.”

“Oh so you live here for real, for real,” she realizes.

“Yup, those four-“ he gestures to the triplets and Malcolm- “say they’re from New York, but between you and me I’m the only one who even owns a decent coat, so.”

The girl laughs again, a little too hard for what he thought was kind of a weak joke. “Hey, maybe they’re warm blooded.”

“Yeah, look at them shiver when they visit in December and you’ll change your mind.”

Another slightly too hard laugh. “Hey, speaking of the city, I’m here a while longer, you seem cool, we should hang before I go. We should like, exchange instas or something.”

Oh, is that why she’s laughing like that?

“He doesn’t have a phone,” Annabeth cuts in on his behalf, pausing her conversation with Roman. He blinks at her, surprised. He hadn’t realized she’d even been paying attention.

He’s a little relieved to be honest. Once he’d learned that being asked for your instagram borderline out of the blue counted as flirting (way, way too late honestly, he genuinely confuses himself looking back on it) he’s discovered that, apparently, he has bad luck when it comes to running into flirty girls.

Priscilla-Jay’s eyes widen and her mouth opens as she looks rapidly between him and Annabeth. “Oh, oh, oh my bad girl, I wasn’t even tryna do you-“

Annabeth brushes her hair behind her ears and holds her fingers there, hovering over them, a clear sign of embarrassment for her, “No, I mean he actually doesn’t. Like seriously.”

Priscilla-Jay looks at him for confirmation, brow scrunched in surprise and he nods, inexplicably embarrassed himself. “I mean, I technically do, but it’s a flip phone and I only use it when I have to drive far.”

She grimaces in a way that should feel totally exaggerated but fits just right on her expressive face. “Oh, wait that’s kinda wild, you’re just unplugged as hell, huh.”

Percy nods, “Yeah, pretty much.”

Roman, he’s noticed, is watching the whole exchange with unhappiness on his face and it definitely does not bring Percy any joy at all.

But, he won’t lie, Annabeth’s quick intervention does, and it carries him the whole night until he ends up on the sidewalk with everyone else, trying to fan away the humidity with their hands and drinking soda out of their stupid plastic trophies. Annabeth makes a point to call it extremely unsanitary (which, Percy admits, it is), but takes a big gulp when they all start to chant for her to.

He finds himself drifting off to the side not long later, and she follows. She’s leaning on the next door restaurants railing when she says, “I guess you have to get to your party. Bet your friends are waiting.”

“I called to let them know I’d be late, they’ll be fine,” he tells her.

“Oh. Cool.”

They stand there in silence, unable to decide between staring at each other and looking literally anywhere else. In a possibly ill advised move, he blurts out, “Wanna come with me?” 

Her brow scrunches. “You want me to come with you?” she asks, sounding only slightly incredulous.

He almost says ‘Why wouldn't I?’ But that feels both untrue and like ten out of ten kindling for an argument. So instead he just says. “Yeah. I do.”

She looks at him, eyes narrowed slightly, as if searching for something written in tiny letters on his eyes. Speaking of, he now realizes that she’s wearing a light layer of makeup, and that he wasn’t imagining that extra gray shimmer brightening her eyes.

“Ok,” she says finally before turning to look at Malcolm and her sisters. “Guys, I’m gonna go with Percy to this party. I’ll catch up with you later, ok?”

“Ooh, can we come?”

“No, 13 year olds, you can’t come,” Annabeth laughs.

They all start to needle and beg but she fends them off, all while making Malcolm promise three seperate times to keep eyes on them at all times until they get back to the bus. Priscilla-Jane makes her promise to call when she gets back with everyone else for the night, and Roman hugs her too tight and too long and whispers something too close to her ear that makes her smile too hard. 

But that’s ok, because Percy’s the one that gets to look over his shoulder and wave as he walks off with her at his side.

Not to be petty or jealous though. Obviously.

“So, who’s party is it?” Annabeth asks as they meander down the road.

“This girl from school is having a last day party,” he explains, shrugging. “I kind of promised a couple friends I'd show up.”

“Promised? Who knew you’d be popular.”

“I’m not popular, my friends are popular,” he corrects. “People just know it’s easier to get them to come if I’m going too.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What does that mean?”

”Just that you’re the kind of person to be completely beloved and not even notice.”

Percy laughs and tries to stave off a blush. ”Beloved is crazy.”

She shrugs. “I’m just saying, you’re not good at telling when people actually care about you.”

He smiles, and shrugs back, only a little mocking, “There are worse flaws than being the most humble man on earth though.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes, but smiles all the same. “Never mind, I’m taking it back, you haven’t earned it enough.”

“Nope, too late,” he insists, thoughtlessly slinging an arm around her shoulder. He’s always like this with her lately, so quick to abandon self control for instinct. “I have it all on the record.”

“Yeah and I’m gonna strike it,” she says. They walk a couple blocks in comfortable silence after that until she asks, “How’s living with Paul going?”

It’s Percy’s turn to shrug. “I mean, it’s all right. It’s not like it changed that much. He basically lived with us since they got engaged, there’s just more stuff in the house now. Living off two incomes and having a car though? Revolutionary, my mom and Paul are geniuses. Don’t know why no one thought of this before.”

That gets a true, full laugh out of Annabeth, and it brings into focus that they are Touching and she is so pretty and she smells like that lemony mousse she uses on her braids. What kind of dumbass was he, to let these moments become so few and far between?

“Speaking of them...” Annabeth slows her steps slightly,  slipping from beneath his arm and turning around to walk backwards without even checking to look. Percy moves her slightly to the right so he can better watch her walkway. “You didn’t tell your mom. About what’s gonna happen.”

“How do you know that?”

“Don’t avoid the question.”

He sighs, remembering that it’s this exact kind of dumbass that had created such distance between them. The one that is sick of her bringing It up when all he wants to do is get on with life and refusing to let go.

“Annabeth, I didn't tell- Stairs,” he warns, cutting himself off. Annabeth turns on a dime and bounds down the steps, Percy tight on her tail. 

“Oh my gods, you didn't tell anyone,” she finishes, realization twisting her features as she glances over her shoulder at him. “Not a single person.” 

“Why would I?”

“They're your “friends”-“ no actual air quotes but he hears them- “And she’s your mom.”

“I have enough people treating me like I’m a ghost, I don’t need any more.”

“Not even Rachel knows?”

Damn, she would ask that. He hates this, how she always does this to him. It’s not like that with Rachel, with either of them (technically), but there’s still this sense he gets that if he was to get even a fraction closer to either of them than he is now, he’d have no choice but to somehow let go of the other. It’s nigh impossible to be anything but all in on a girl like Annabeth, but it’s just as difficult to even consider letting go of the life, the real, normal, long, magic-less life that Rachel makes him feel like he can reach. 

Still, he shouldn’t lie to her. 

Percy grimaces, head tilting side to side. “No, I told Rachel,” he admits, but he’s quick to amend the phrase with, “and I’m gonna tell Paul. Soon.” 

Annabeth’s body language goes from New York in December to Alaska in February. “You told Rachel. And nobody else.”

He shrugs. “She’s clear-sighted, so I thought I might as well.”

“So being clear-sighted is a good enough reason for Rachel, but not for your mom?”

He stuffs his hands in his pocket and groans as they slide in through the open emergency door beside the turnstiles. “Oh brother, here we go,” he mutters.

“ ‘Oh brother'? Are you 40?”

“Are you really gonna start this right now?”

“Did it ever really end?”

They reach the bottom of the stairs and Annabeth turns around to face him again as they walk. He shakes his head and tries not to get too angry.

“You always do this,” he continues, grabbing the emergency door and holding it for her so they can slip in behind the person coming out. “You ask questions and get pissed when you don't like the answers.”

“Excuse me for not liking it when you spew half-assed bullshit instead of just being honest,” she spits back.

“Whoo baby, do another spin for me girl! All that ass back there,” a boy a little older than them shouts from a group with three others. They all laugh. Percy’s head immediately snaps over towards the voice, already high heart rate rising, but Annabeth knocks on his chin, facing him back towards her as they come to a stop in front of the platform.

“Don't react, he’s with his friends, he wants the attention.” She looks up at the electric signs. “The train’s almost here anyway.”

“I know you heard me baby! Don't act all shy, I only bite if you want me to.”

“He didn’t stop.”

“Yeah, believe it or not my ears work.” She lifts her arm to flip the guy off, which makes his friends hoot with laughter. 

“I’m gonna say something.”

“Don’t.”

The man whistles and thrusts his hips a couple times, blond pedo-stache scrunching as he puckers his lips. Percy sideeyes him hard. “Come on baby, I got a copy of the Karma at my dorm, I can teach you something new.”

“This is the cartooniest, corniest catcall I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Like are we sure he’s a real person?” 

“You’d be shocked,” Annabeth mutters.

Percy glances over at the guy, who’s still leering as his friends laugh.

“I’m still gonna say something.”

“Don’t.”

“Maybe I’ll just punch him.”

“Don’t. You shouldn’t be fighting mortals anymore, that’s how people get hospitalized.”

“I don’t know, I think that might be good for him.”

“Percy, leave it alone, he’s losing interest, the train should pull in any second now.”

Percy, not being known for the ability to do anything of the sort, completely ignores Annabeth’s advice, turning his head toward the man and asking, “You got a problem or something?”

“Definitely not kid,” he says, openly leering at Annabeth. “I’m just tryna talk to this beautiful young lady right here.”
“My bad, let me rephrase,” Percy tells him, turning all the way around to look him in the eye. “Do you want to have a problem or something?”

The man’s cockiness finally wanes under Percy’s glare. He sticks his hands in his pockets and steps back onto the wall. “Nah man, I don’t want no trouble.”

“Then don’t look for it.” Percy turns back to Annabeth, who shakes her head.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did. I’m surprised you didn’t.”

Annabeth shifts her weight and vaguely scowls. “If I got into it with every guy who ever tried to catcall me, I’d be wasting my breath.” Fuck if that doesn’t fill Percy with a nebulous, dangerous sense of rage and concern. Annabeth must notice, because she shakes her head at him. “I’m not talking about this anymore and I don’t want you to either.”

He shoves his hands back in his pockets silently, obliging. The train comes and they get on. There are two empty seats towards the back of the car. He makes her take the window so he can sit in the outside. Part because he wants to be able to stretch his legs into the aisle a little if it doesn’t fill up (which it doesn’t!) and part because he’s forever traumatized by the time he was ten and some high as a kite asshole literally dragged this teenage girl out of an aisle seat by the hair because she didn’t wanna give it up. 

He pretends he doesn’t feel her eyes on him until she asks, “You really told Rachel?”

Percy’s already bouncing leg moves even faster. “I thought you wanted me to tell people.”

“You knew what I meant when I said that.”

“Did I though?”

“Don’t play stupid.”

“No one’s playing anything, sorry I’m not ensuring my every decision is Annabeth Chase approved.”

“Maybe you should, bet they’d be smarter.”

“You can stop feeding your ego now, I think it’s full,” he snarks.

“I’m just saying, nothing you’re doing about this is healthy. Like at all. You’re just giving up and you’re bottling all this up.”

“There’s no way Annabeth Chase is trying to give me a lecture about bottling things up, are we serious right now?” he asks her.

There is a tinge of genuine hurt in her eyes and he almost feels bad. “I just don’t- I keep trying to make it all make sense and I can’t. I just can’t understand you anymore. Does it make you happier, when you refuse to give a shit?”

“Have you considered maybe you just give too much of a shit? Between me and Luke I actually think you might run out.”

As soon as Luke’s name is said the fingers beneath her chin twitch (a very, very, angry twitch) and he regrets the words before they’ve even finished leaving his mouth. Still, he can’t bring himself to try and take them back.

“Seriously? That’s where we’re gonna go with this,” she asks and there is a mean, mean edge to her voice. “You always bring him up when you run out of flimsy ways to defend yourself. It can’t be that hard to not be chickenshit. Cause that’s all it is. I’m sorry I don’t want to watch the guy who saved my life get consumed by an evil fucking titan. I’m sorry I don’t have the patience to sit here and swaddle you up and coddle you like the baby you’re acting like because I’d rather spend that energy on people who act like they want to be alive instead of partying and fucking like drinking or whatever the fuck you do, and skipping school and turning down quests, and trying to pretend this isn’t happening when we both know it is. That’s really my bad.”

“Is it cold up there on your high horse?”

“Is it hot down there in the underworld, where you apparently already think you are?”

“Gods forbid I try to live my life instead of just worrying about it.”

“So there’s just like, no balance in between,” she asks sarcastically, chopping first her left hand through the air, “it’s just, not give a damn-“ then her right- “or only give a damn, that’s just the only two options to you. Does that even make any sense?!”

“Why are you dramatizing this so much?!”

“Because you’re dying.” He nearly flinches at the plainness of her language. “Do you get that?! You’re dying, and it’s exhausting to feel like I care more about you being here than you do.”

“And you think I’m not fucking tired?!” he snaps. A few people in the cabin look at him sideways for the tone. He sighs, putting his head in his hands. “Gods, can we just- just drop all this for once? Please.”

She hasn’t cooled off at all yet, he can feel it. But she scoots away and turns her head towards the window. “Alright, Perseus, whatever you say.”

“Thank you, Anna-Elizabeth, I appreciate your cooperation,” he spits.

They ride in charged, and then awkward, silence until they reach their stop.

They don’t say much of anything until they’re walking up the stairs leading to the apartment complexes door. “You know,” Annabeth tells him just a little too loud, “I’m realizing I’ve never actually been to a party before.”

Percy’s eyebrows raise as he opens the door for her. “Really?” She nods. “Damn, are you sure you wanna go in? There’s gonna be a lot of people.”

She sideyes him as she goes inside. “Like how much a lot?”

“Like too many. A lot.”

“I didn’t think you went to those kinds of things. The way you’ve always talked about school…”

He can’t blame her for thinking that. He still gets weirded out sometimes. How do you go from going between bullied and isolated at every school you went to to this and why was the answer, as all of them seemed to be, a girl far bolder than he’d ever felt?

He can’t tell Annabeth that, obviously.

So he just tells her other, more mundane stuff as the elevator goes up, up, up. He’d joined clubs because of his moms urgings about college (which he’s not too worried about for obvious reasons but if it makes her happy), basically got adopted into a friend group by a couple upperclassmen when he got voluntold to make posters for a fundraiser, and this is what his weekends have looked like ever since. She hums in interest.

Annabeth’s taste of what he meant by “a lot” is immediate, as the open in open invite has the rooftop packed. It’s a mess of confetti, solo cups, and sweaty bodies. The music, thankfully, is just loud enough to hear over the din of voices without being completely overbearing. He doesn’t know how the hell Jacqueline W is gonna get this all cleaned up. The odd mix of rich kids (Rachel, Lucien, many) and scholarship and staff ones (himself, Jasmine, few) have converged, and it’s showing. Percy breathes it in and smiles. Normally he’d enjoy the chance to get lost that a crowd like this can provide, but then he feels Annabeth, who’s arm is nearly brushing his, tense. 

“You like this?” she asks, sideyeing him.

He laughs a little and looks down at her. “You sure you wanna stay?”

She seems all too ready to get back into the elevator, but in the end doesn’t move. “Yeah. Yeah we came all the way here, I might as well.

He hesitates before he places his hand in the small of her back. She relaxes against him, and he finds his hand wandering further to her side, pulling her closer. He’s unsurprised at how right it feels. “Come on, let’s go find my friends.”

They make it a surprising thirteen steps and two nods of greeting through the crowd, confetti and concrete underfoot, before being stopped.

“Percy, my boy!”

Percy freezes, wincing when his brain registers it’s Mark who, while mostly harmless and an alright guy, is a lot, and also the slightest bit of a stereotypical douche. Please gods, don’t let Annabeth think I’m this type of guy when I’m home.

“Yo,” Mark says, arms in the air to protect a beer can and red solo cup as he slides between bodies to get to him. “Me and you are ‘bouta have an issue.”

Percy’s brow furrows and he finds his arm recoiling, guiding Annabeth back, starting to angle her behind him. “Over what?”

“I heard you ran for me in the 4x4 when I had the flu. The fuck are you doing in long distance that’s a waste man!” He claps Percy on the shoulder. “We didn’t have a first place 4x4 all season before that.”

Percy’s shoulders fall in relief. Just Mark being dramatic, per usual. “Oh, thanks dude, appreciate it.” 

He’s quick to keep walking, but Mark steps in their path, “Woah, nah, don’t go yet, who’s this?” he asks, head tilting side to side rhythmically, looking Annabeth up and down in a way that makes Percy bristle instinctually, though he calms when he realizes it’s more generally curious than horny.

“This is Annabeth,” he explains, “she’s a friend from my old summer camp.”

The muscles (and fuck are there muscles) in Annabeth’s back tense at ‘my old’ but she waves a little all the same. “Hey, nice to meet you.”

“Good to meet you too, I’m Mark, I run track with Percy.”

“Oh, nice.”

“Yo, Mark! Bring back the ball, dude,” someone tells from across the room.

All three sets of eyes go to Mark’s non cup holding hand which, sure enough, has a ball in it. Mark laughs. “Damn, I gotta go. See you dude!”

He starts to step back but then he remembers something and steps forward again, pointing at Percy. “Oh and Percy, yo, Little Red told me she asked you about-“ he searches for the words, looking to Percy for help and finding none- “uh, what’s-it-called.”

”I- sure?”

“Yeah dude, you better go.” Oh shit, he’s talking about the lake with Rachel, please Gods don’t let him remember he’s talking about the lake and please don’t let him remember whose lakehouse he’d be staying in- “It’s cool as fuck, the parties are insane, the cliffs are fire.” He does a two handed point as he walks backwards, beer pong ball in hand. “Plus I gotta get you on a jet ski.”

“I'm thinking about it!”

“Come on dude, we all know you're gonna say yes eventually.”

“No you don't!”

He ushers Annabeth away as she looks at him in confusion and asks, “What’s he talking about?”

“Perce!” Percy sends a thank you prayer up to Dionysus as Jasmine runs up, clearly tipsy, and grabs his shoulders before pressing the side of her face to his and making kiss sounds, which is definitely a sign that she’s veering off tipsy into drunk. 

Lucien comes up and rolls his eyes, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to him and off Percy. “Oh my god babe, leave Percy alone, you're doing too much.”

“Awww, do you want a kiss too,” she says before getting on tiptoe and starting to kiss him all over the face, lips included as he weakly protests and tries not to smile.

Percy glances at Annabeth, expecting to see the slight pucker of the lips (very cute by the way) that she does when she’s cringed out and trying not to show it, but instead she looks kind of…forlorn? Is that the word he's thinking of?

Lucien laughs, finally breaking, and pulls her off. “Baby stop, for real.” She finally does, pouting and he looks at Annabeth, raising his eyebrow the smallest bit before dropping them and saying, “Sorry for her, she was throwing them back when we got here, I think it just hit.”

“Not you?” Percy asks.

Lucien scoffs. “Hell the fuck no. After the Morgan’s thing I can’t even bring a drink too close to my face without wanting to lose my fucking stomach lining.”

Percy, remembering the night, almost gags. “Shit, don’t remind me. I had to leave and go on a hike the next day.”

“Bro same, I almost took up meditation.”

Jasmine groans. “Oh my God bro, y’all are so extra,” she declares. “Exposure therapy is the best cure for fear y’all!” She spreads her arms and someone walking by narrowly manages to duck beneath them, losing focus on where they’re going and subsequently stomping the hell out of Annabeth’s foot.

Both her and Percy jump back, and the person profusely apologizes before going on their way. Throughout it all, Percy’s hand remains solidly on Annabeth’s back, fingers rubbing a comforting circle as she holds her foot. “You ok?” he asks. He notices Lucien and Jasmine out of the corner of his eye, the latter suddenly and inexplicably steady, making eye contact out with her boyfriend out the corner of her eyes. 

“Gods, that hurt. Yeah I’m fine though.”

“Hey, you do it too?” Lucien asks.

“Do what?”

“Say gods instead of God.”

“Oh, yeah I guess I do.”

Percy smiles. “This is Annabeth, guys.”

She waves awkwardly. “Hi.”

“Oh my God!” Jasmine shouts over the music, suddenly just a little more herself. “That’s right, you were with Ms. Sally this morning. You changed your outfit, you look so cute.”

Ms. Sally? Percy sideyes Annabeth, who’s very pointedly not looking at him, instead nodding. “Mhm, yeah, I was. I remember you now, you looked a lot different with the braids.”

“Yup, I had to switch it up a lil’ bit,” Jasmine said, fluffing her fro out with her hands and adjusting the headband covering the front. “I put these two and Rachel to work, I was done so freaking quick. Especially this one, I gave him a comb and he was knocking them out.”

Annabeth laughs a little, looking up at Percy. “Aren’t you so grateful I make you help take out my braids now?”

He rolls his eyes and his neck heats up a little. “It’s not just because of you, I’m an all natural talent.” 

“You help her take out her hair,” Lucien and Jasmine say in eerie sync, Lucien fully in question and Jasmine’s half in statement. 

Percy nods suddenly flooded by embarrassment, like his forehead’s a movie screen playing all those moments in his cabin that really shouldn’t have felt as intimate as they were. Even when Grover helped, the last few somehow always came down just the two of them, unraveling braids, bodies close together, ADHD leaving them half-miserable in the drawn out task but perfectly content in the company. Maybe it is, because Jasmine gives Lucien a glance that fails to be as subtle as she wants it to be, and he gives a glance Percy’s only able to catch because of Jasmine’s.

Apparently this is a cue of some sort, because Jasmine grabs his shoulder, leaning forward. “I gotta go find Mari, but you’re coming to lunch with us tomorrow, 2:00 at the pizza place by the Burger King, be there.”

“I’m paying,” Lucien adds.

He nods, startled by the sudden authoritarian tone in Jasmine’s voice. “Um, yeah, ok, I’ll be there.”

She gives him a sharp nod before putting a smile back on to hug Annabeth (not a stranger-hugger) which predictably makes her tense and try to back away while politely patting her back. “Great meeting you. Or seeing you. Who cares, you’re nice, you’re gorgeous, loved looking at you, it’s packed in here so in case I don’t see you have a good night.”

“Yeah, you too?” Annabeth says, tone unsure, but Jasmine’s wee already hugging Percy and whispering a threat to show up on time the next day in his ear. Lucien nods in acknowledgment ar her, daps Percy up again, and steers Jasmine back onto their original path. 

Percy starts to lead Annabeth away too, but just before she’s out of ear shot, he thinks he hears Jasmine say, “She’s so pretty but poor Little Red, bro.” He doesn’t let himself think about it. Hopefully, his memory banks will throw it out.

They keep wandering through the crowd, Annabeth ignoring the way Percy attempts to use his eyes to burn peepholes in her skull.

“So…Ms. Sally, huh,” he says. Now that he thinks about it, this makes his mom trying not to laugh on the phone make a lot more sense.

She looks over at a room two doorways away. “Oh is that something to drink? I’m so thirsty,” Annabeth says, not even trying to hide how suspicious she’s being. “I’ll be right back,” she promises, disappearing into the crowd before he can stop her. He tries to follow, but loses her trail after the first doorway. Turns out that when everyone is wearing bright colors, the camp shirt becomes a lot less effective.

He sighs and starts to turn around to see if he passed her when he hears someone say, “Bruh, I already cleaned you out, I’m pretty sure all you have left is the actual wallet, quit while you’re behind.” 

Percy pauses, recognizing the voice and when he turns around, sure enough there’s a pile of dark orange curls in a puff atop a head, paint (purposeful today, flowers) on a freckled, sandy brown shoulder. “Rachel?”

She leans her head on the back of the couch, searching, and grins when they make eye contact. “Hey, waterboy, what’s up?”

He gives her the stink eye when the nickname sets off a chain of hey waterboy, what’s good waterboy but she only blinks up at him as if she has no idea what she’s done (he stepped in as a basketball manager for a favor one singular time). Still, Percy steps closer, putting one hand on the back of the couch and leaning over her a bit as she reaches out to dap him up, holding her blackjack hand to her chest with her left. 

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he says as he reciprocates.

She shrugs. “Dad got called to a business thing and mom gave up keeping me so I figured I’d come by for a while. Plus I heard Grady was coming so I figured I could clean him out.”

“Don’t fucking understand it neither,” Mellie chimes in from beside her. “The bitch is wealthy, I don’t even know what she does with it.”

“I thrift and buy art shit, what do you do with blackjack money, end world hunger?” Rachel asks, with a wry smile on her face. Mellie gives her a “fair enough” shrug.

“Oh there you are Percy…”

Annabeth trails off when Percy looks over at her, body shifting ever so slightly so the freckled hand is revealed to be Rachel’s. Her grip on her coke can grows tighter and her smile weakens, pulled tight like corset strings in bad hands. Rachel’s does much of the same.

“Annabeth, hey,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

She steps up so she’s arm against arm with Percy. The backs of their hands bump and then linger. “They let us have a night out at camp. Percy bought me.”

Rachel smile brightens, but still manages to look off. “Oh cool! You liking it here?”

Annabeth leans in closer to him, and Percy, caught off guard, feels his neck flush. He also has the sudden, irrational feeling that people are watching her lean in, taking note of it. 

“Yeah, actually, it’s fun. Loud, but fun.”

Rachel raises her eyebrows. “Really? I’m surprised, it doesn’t seem like your kind of scene.”

Annabeth rolls her bad shoulder. “Well my usual one didn’t seem like yours but there you were.”

Rachel laughs, and it’s not without humor, but it’s also not ballooning with it as it typically does. “Good point.” Her eyes move back to Percy’s. “Perce, you playing?”

“Don’t fall for it,” Bea tells him, studying her cards. “She’s cheating.”

“No I’m not, you’re just losing.”

“She wants to to sink you into poverty, Percy,” Mellie warns. “Typical member of the bourgeoisie.”

Rachel puts her hand out, as if saying, ‘Stop’ and paints on a serious expression. “Hey, it’s for charity. Y’all don’t like charity?”

Both other girls and the dealer burst into laughter even as Grady continues to frown into his empty wallet. “Percy this is your fault,” Bea accuses. “Before you came she used to be fucking for real like 80% of the time, we’re now down to 50, you’re rubbing off on her too much.”

“Yeah I miss when you were quiet and you just used to brood all the time,” Mellie says. “Bring that back.”

“No, he definitely still sits in the back of every single class and broods,” Rachel corrects. “I’ve seen him.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Percy says, leaning on the back of the couch. “I am a resplendent ray of sunshine at all times and I always have been, I resent these accusations.”

“Oh those are big, big words for Elmo,” Freddie says, absently shuffling the remnants of the deck. “But like are y’all playing or can I go get another drink now…”

“Yeah, no, I’m leaving the game,” Mellie said. “I’m so over this.”

“Same,” McKenzie agrees.

“Nah, nah, I got something in here yall, I promise,” Grady says, sounding almost manic. There’s a slight slur to his words, and Rachel gently plucks the wallet from his fingers and tosses it to Andrew, who snatches it out of the air and puts it into his pocket. “Hey!”

“Dude, you’re flat broke,” Freddie says. “Leave before she tries to take your credit card.”

Mellis gasps and hops to her feet clapping. “Ooo, let’s play a game! The one that’s like among us, I forgot the name.

“And that’s our cue,” Percy says, hand going back to Annabeth’s lower back and beginning to push her away. He yelps when he’s grabbed by the shirt collar and abruptly dragged back. 

Mellie smiles at him a little too sharply, her entire top half leaning over the couch. “No, no, no, Percy, let’s let the girl decide for herself, she’s old enough. Wait, how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Annabeth says, tone uncertain as she starts to angle away from her.

“Yeah, she can decide, Percy.”

“You know underage drinking’s a crime, right?” he asks.

“So is vandalism but you don’t see me reporting you for drawing on subway walls, do you?” She turns to Annabeth. “Do you wanna play girl? And don’t say no just ‘cause he did, he’s lame anyway.”

Annabeth’s answer is interrupted by a laugh (well, more of a cackle) and they turn their heads in sync to see Rachel, sitting down on the floor by the table with Bea’s white claw stopped inches from her mouth. “You did not just look me in the eye and say you drink this shit just for the taste. Oh my god, I should get Jasmine to put you on courtyard trash duty for that one, that’s foul.”

“What, they’re good!” Bea insists, crossing his arms.

“Lying is a sin and there’s a cross around your neck!”

“I want to play,” Annbeth says, already walking towards the table. Nellie smiles. She sits as far from Rachel as she can, and Percy drops onto the couch behind her, leaning in.

“Are you sure you wanna do this? You really don’t have to, Mellie just wanted to mess with you.”

“Percy, I want to play.”

“I’m just saying, I’ve seen this game get people fucked up fast before.”

“I can hold a couple drinks, Percy.”

“Do you drink in San Francisco?”

“No.”

Percy looks at her with even more suspicion. “You sure you wanna drink? The strawberry wine at camp is strong but not this strong.”

“I can hold a couple drinks. Move.”

Percy eyes her skeptically but sighs. Worst case scenario, he gets her back to everyone from camp and Silena hopefully clocks it and covers for her.

She leans her head back and looks up at him. “Ok, how do you play?”

Percy tries not to be distracted by the long, exposed line of her throat and how it leads to her shoulder, both surfaces glittering with sparkly stuff. He tries to travel further up, hoping that will help, but watching her big brown eyes sparkle completely on their own kind of makes it a moot point. “Uhh, so pretty much they put a bunch of shoots- shots, I mean shots. They uh, have someone like, hand them out, but some of them have water and some have, you know, alcohol, usually tequila or something cause it has to be clear. They, you know, everyone grabs the closest one and drinks it, if they catch the person with alcohol they lose.”

“What happens to the loser?”

“They drink a different, grosser shot of whatever they mix up.

“And if they don’t catch me?”

“You get to choose who else has to drink instead, then you go again.”
“Oh.”

He smirks a little. “You see why I don’t play? Do you still want to?”

She lifts her head just a bit, eyes skating towards Rachel, who’s just finished off the white claw and is beginning to argue with someone about recycling, then back to him. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll play.”

Her regret is visible when she borderline gags on the first one.

“That was disgusting,” she says. “How do you drink this?”

“I don’t drink that,” he tells her. “I barely drink at all, why do you think I tried to run?”

The entire table is laughing at her, and Percy watches as Bea, who he sometimes thinks is ok but whose mouth he’s been constantly warned to be hyper aware of, leans over to Mellie and Rachel.

“Damn, I guess Anna can’t hold a drink, maybe you shouldn’t have asked her to play,” Bea stage whispers. Mellie laughs, and Rachel just watches Annabeth with indiscernible eyes.

“You don’t have to be a dick, Bea,” Rachel tells her before Percy can.

“Just a joke, chill. She’s not bothered, is she?” Bea looks right at her at the last part, head tilted innocently.

“Not even a little,” Annabeth assures her. They probably don’t see it, but Percy can hear in her purposeful drawl how that competitive glint in her is sparking. She’d underestimated it last time, but it never took her long to get her bearings.

They go four more rounds before Annabeth taps out. She gets the shot for three (something Percy very quickly begins to think is odd). They only catch her in one, and even then opinion is split, and of course, she gives the gross one to Bea every single time. 

“Wow, I don’t even really feel it,” she tells him, pulling herself up to the couch beside him and tapping out. The circle closes itself off to them pretty much immediately.

He smiles at her. “Yeah, because it’s been like, minutes. Give it a second.”

So she does, and they sit on the couch, chatting away for a while. She gives him a rundown about camp, relaxed enough that it doesn’t turn into a fight and he sips ever so slowly at some weird homemade punch.

The plastic cup sounds hollow when his fingertips tap against it by the time Jasmine reappears, leaning over the couch for support to talk to them (still drunk as hell) until Lucien appears and whispers something in her ear. She pouts, but leans over and places an overly loud kiss on Percy’s forehead. “Bye my beautiful son, I’ll miss you.” Annabeth giggles entirely too hard as Jas grabs his face and pulls it in Lucien’s direction. “You now, kiss our baby goodbye.”

“Yeah we definitely gotta get you the fuck home,” he sighs, shaking his head and threading their fingers together. “Bye man, I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah for sure, see you.” Percy gives him a small wave and watches as they walk away. “We should get out of here too,” he tells Annabeth. “It’s pretty late.”

She nods in agreement, stretching. “Do you wanna just go back to your place? I’m sure you have a curfew and stuff.”

“What time do you have to be at the bus to check-in?”

She squints at the nearest open phone. “I want to say seven minutes ago?”

“Wow, I hope you have so much fun with that lecture and all those dishes later.”

“Oh I will,” she promises. “But since I missed it I might as well go all the way. Your couch is pretty comfortable.”

“If you come to my house you’re sleeping in the bed, my mom would make fun of me for the rest of time if I let you sleep on the couch.”

“But-“

“Don’t do it for me Annabeth,” he insists, putting on the kind of affected tone you hear in infomercials for dog rescues. “Do it for her.”

She laughs, way way too loud, holding out her arm. “Ugh, I guess. Pull me up.”

He holds out his and she clasps his forearm, pulling up a little unsteadily. “You really do have nice arms,” she mutters, clearly to herself but at a volume where he can hear. His ears warm and he’s positive they turn bright red. That comment combined with the slight sway when she stands confirms that she is absolutely drunk. Like quite drunk. Don’t get him wrong, he’s seen her drunk, but like shitty strawberry wine people make at camp split too many ways tipsy, not hard alcohol drunk.

He wraps an arm around her again, prepared to do the whole getting in here thing in reverse, and waves to Rachel as he does. “Hey, I’m gone,” he tells her.

Her only response is a calm, smooth nod that hardly forces her to take her eyes off the card game unfolding in front of her, though he swears he sees her twitch, like she’s about to do a double take. At what, gods know.

Annabeth continues to prove her drunkness by being slightly out of it the whole way to the train station and fervently denying it even as her speech slows down. 

“I don’t even feel drunk,” she insists, sounding tired but not measured.

“Sure you don’t.”

A little more silence with only the rumble and woosh of train tracks for company, and then she scoots closer to him, putting her head on his shoulder.

“Rachel’s different at parties.”

“She is.”

“Less…annoying.”

“I’m not gonna respond to that, because you’re drunk.”

“Am not. Less climate talk than I thought for a party with that many disposable cups.

“Oh she’s very serious about party cleanup. She sorts the recycling when she’s drunk. Plus half the time she’s too busy playing blackjack. They play so much blackjack at parties, it’s genuinely weird. Like I’ve been to other schools parties, no one else does that. I think half my school has a gambling addiction.”

Annabeth turns her head, her nose smushing against his face. “You know something?”

He pulls away a bit to look at her, pushing aside the feeling of her breath on his cheek, the way her lips just barely brushed against his jaw. “Yeah?” he asks, wondering if she hears the small crack on the syllable.

Another warm puff of breath “Never mind.”

He opens his mouth to ask what the other thing is when the train comes to a halt and she pops up. “Your stop right?”

He shakes her head and grabs her by the arm to sit back down. “No, there’s more.”

She groans as she flops back down. “Ugh, ok.” Her head falls onto his shoulder again, and she practically buried her face in his shirt, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m tired,” she says quietly.

“Well it’s pretty late, I’m not surprised,” Percy mutters in a similar tone.

“I’m not just sleepy,” she corrects, “I’m tired.” Before he can ask about that one, she looks up, grabbing his face in one of her hands so he has to look deep into her eyes, suddenly slightly glossy with tears. “Aren’t you tired Percy?”

“Exhausted,” he admits, not sure how he means it.

Her brows draw closer together. “Don’t get too tired though. We need to live forever, ok?”

He reaches up to grab her wrist, thumb automatically beginning to stroke her skin. He prays to Hypnos, hoping sincerely that she won’t remember this in the morning. “I will,” he promises emptily, resolving to stop fighting with her from here on. “I’ll live forever and ever, ok?”

She nods. “Ok. We there yet?”

“Still two more stops, Annabeth.”

She sighs, dissapointed. “Ok.”

She asks three more times before they actually reach the stop. She practically hugs his arm on the way up the escalator, and actually hugs it as they walk down the street, leaning on him as they chat about things that don’t matter. Bad teachers and how annoying public transportation can be. Secret spots in their respective cities (she’s starting to like San Francisco, against all odds) and quests long past.

When they finally make it to his apartment building, the elevator that he swears is there for decoration at this point practically laughs in his face when he pushes the button. Percy groans, placing a hand on the back of his neck. “Guess we’re walking up six flights,” he tells Annabeth. She looks at him, slightly alarmed but starts to follow him up. She makes it like four steps before coming up short to one and nearly toppling over, barely catching herself on the railing. 

As soon as he’d made sure she’s ok, Percy lights up like a Christmas tree. “Oh shit,” he whispers. “You’re super drunk.”

“Please be quiet.”

He shakes his head. “No. You are so drunk. Oh my gods. I knew you were, but I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

“It’s not bad at all,” she snaps, the words still coming too slowly. 

He shakes his head even harder, struggling not to let laughter overtake him too badly. “I actually think the walk made you drunker.”

“No, I’m not, asshole,” she mutters, straightening up.

He doesn’t even bother with tamping down his smile. “Mhm, sure, walk up those stairs for me?”

“I will, but not for you. It’s because I want to.”

“Mhm.”

She starts to do it and makes it a truly miraculous three steps before stumbling. Luckily, she snatches the railing before her body can even think about taking more than a slight tip. “I don’t like parties,” she says, staring at the long flight of steps before her.

Percy laughs. “You sure? Seems like you had the time of your life.”

“Shut up.”

“You want me to carry you up?”

She goes to say no automatically, like he knew she would, but then she hesitates. He can feel her looking him up and down and tries to remember everything he’s been told about not reading too much into a drunk person’s actions. “Ok,” she says, nodding. “Just this once, never speak of it again.”

He nods obediently, trying not to look too eager. “Piggyback or Fireman carry?”

“Fireman carry me and see what happens,” she threatens.

Percy laughs, leaning against the wall. “Well if I piggyback you are you gonna hold on? ‘Cause you’re not acting like someone whose gonna hold on and if I drop you on the stairs I can name like ten people who’d try and kill me in my sleep. And one is upstairs.”

“Just turn around before I change my mind,” she tells him, glaring. 

He puts his hands up in surrender and turns around, the step giving her enough leverage to easily climb on. 

When Percy stops at the second floor landing to readjust, she starts to let go so he has to grip her leg even more firmly to compensate.

“Woah, I literally just said hold on tight.”

“I’m trying,” she answers, though it comes with giggles that make it clear she’s reached her trying quota for the day.

Percy sighs. Yeah, the piggy back is kinda dead. He drops her for a second, placing one hand behind her bare back (don’t think about it don’t think about it) and the other behind her thighs (really don’t think about it) and scooping her up. She lets out a small shriek, hands immediately going up to grip the back of his neck (absolutely don’t think about that) as he adjusts her into his arms. “Don’t you dare drop me,” she orders, not even bothering with protest (she must be really off it).

“You know I won’t, Annabeth.”

She stops fidgeting then, taking the time to look almost uncomfortably deep into his eyes, except it’s not actually uncomfortable because she’s Annabeth, and he will always privately think that her eyes are the most beautiful thing in the heavens or earth. “You wouldn’t, would you?” she says, as if this is the first time she’s seriously considered the concept.

“Mm-mm,” he affirms. “Never.”

They climb the rest of the stairs in silence they maintain until Percy reaches his apartment and, after a gentle place down of Annabeth, he realizes that he has no idea where his keys are. He pats himself down over and over, just a little frantic before Annabeth sighs and starts rooting around under the rug for a spare key. Percy takes her hint and reaches behind the little decorative sign kept specifically for the purpose of hiding the frequently used spare key behind it (Percy sometimes wondered if the ADHD was just from the godly side). 

Annabeth sig in relief when the door finally opened, immediately sprawling herself across the couch, shoes and all. “Thank gods, I don’t know how just longer I would’ve lasted in my feet.”

Percy shook his head, kicking at his heels to push off his sneakers. “You’re acting like I didn’t just carry you up three treacherous flights of stairs.”

“But you didn’t feel like you were gonna either fall over or puke the whole time,” she calls, just a little too loud. 

Percy shushes her as he finally walks into the living room, holding down a laugh. “My mom is sleep, we can’t wake her up,” he reminds her, plopping into the arm of the couch.

“I feel so weird,” Annabeth continues, only marginally quieter. “How do you do this all the time?”

“Well I don’t this “all the time” and I definitely don’t have four shots in an hour,” he answers, pulling her foot into his lap and beginning to untie her shoes. “Honestly you should be even worse than you are, you were just on a full stomach. I start feeling the buzz and I cut myself off. Enough to distract you, but less than makes you thoughtless, that’s the sweet spot.”

“I thought being thoughtless was the whole point.”

Percy shakes his head as he pulls her shoes from his feet and lets them drop onto the carpet with a thump. “Yeah, until you’re getting jumped by monsters on the subway stairs.”

“That makes sense,” she concedes. “Do you have ice cream? I’m hungry.”

They do, mint chocolate chip, that he drops two scoops of into a bowl before pulling out his comically large spoon (the best thing purchased at a flea matketbever, his bed included).

She laughs for a solid five minutes when he offers it to her, wheezing in between sentences as she reminds him of the time she spent the night and woke up to him eating cereal with that spoon out of a popcorn bowl at high noon.

Percy can’t help but grin from ear to ear even if the laugh is at his expense. He even humors her when he asks for a bite she insists on feeding him ice cream off of said comically large spoon. 

Before long, the bowl is empty, and Annabeth, still blessedly low on inhibitions, is holding the face of a crouched Percy in her hands, wiping melted ice cream from the corner of his mouth with adorable seriousness. 

“There,” she says, though her fingers are lingering,’so gentle it’s painful. “I don’t like fighting with you,” she says out of nowhere, plain and the closest he’ll get to an apology. 

Percy hesitates, but raises his palm to wrap around her wrist, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand, across the scar there from falling from a tree when she was just a kid, too early for him to be there to catch her, or at least get the scar with her. “Same,” he answers, as close as he’ll get too.

“I try not to. I really do. It’s just I’m tired of having countdowns on every good thing and…it’s you, Percy.” 

There is nothing he can think of to say to this, so he just nods, leaning his hand further onto her cheek. She is warm so he is warm. She is sad at the possibility he is sad so he is even sadder. She was eating ice cream so he has its aftertaste on his lips. His cheeks and her hand are both just a little sticky with dried ice cream and he doesn’t care at all. She is touching him, so the round bulb in the overhead light is as good as the sun. She is touching him and he is so happy he’s pretty sure he could die. He is so happy he almost thinks he could live.

The clock on the wall ticks and ticks. Annabeth looks up at it and smiles just a little, “Almost summer.”

It continues to count noisy seconds.

20, 19, 18…

Percy slides into a kitchen stool so their eye lines nearly match. If he were to just lean forward a little, his lips would brush her temple, the only one he would ever want to worship at. 

Annabeth turns her head to look at him, hands between her thighs and the cool counter.

15, 14, 13…

Her deep brown eyes are even darker than usual, pupils swollen and overblown. With the kitchen lamp sitting overhead her lashes, still lengthened by mascara, cast slight shadows across her cheeks as she blinks.

12, 11, 10…

It feels like it’s nearly midnight on New Years, the clock descending above him, only this time Annabeth is at his side. It almost feels like he’s been handed a do-over. He assigns every beat of his heart a number.

9, 8, 7…

Her lips part slightly, dry now, but even harder to tear his eyes from. Her breath warms his lips. It smells like mint.

6, 5…

He opens his mouth finally, carefully untying his tongue. “Annabeth,” he whispers, reverent in a way he never quite can get to for gods but always manages to call on for her. 

4…

Her head tilts to the side expectantly. Every breath he takes that she does not share in feels like a waste of his precious little time. 

3…

“Yeah?” she whispers in answer. 

2…

He parts his lips to…well he doesn't really know what, but when has that ever stopped him?

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