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The best part of Percy's day is when he gets to call Annabeth. At least an hour, every day, without fail. Even when she's going out for the night, she'll call in the morning, and then a brief check in to make sure she got home safe.
He remembers being thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and going nine months out of the year without seeing her. He had nothing but a couple photos taped to his mirror, a stack of letters, and a collection of emails to look at over and over again.
He's exhausted with himself. This dull dread for years, just with variations in circumstances. Shouldn't it be gone by now? He had it far worse when the fate of the world rested in a decision he wouldn't know he was making until the very moment.
The only thing that makes him forget about this is Annabeth.
"I was gonna take the bus," she says through the IM, like it's just another line off her checklist.
Sometimes Percy wonders if she plans her life around him. He would never do anything to hold her back, nor would he want to. That's why she's spent the summer in Ithaca, earning less than minimum wage for an internship that might look nice on job applications. It was either this or nothing, so it was no question. Annabeth has to prove herself to herself.
But Percy doesn't really feel… included? Like Annabeth doesn't want to inconvenience him with her existence, so she just keeps him out of the conversation all together.
"Are you fucking serious?"
"What?"
"I'm picking you up. Obviously."
"Won't your parents need the car?"
"What? No, Annabeth, they'll be fine. They're so fine they don't even need licenses."
She hesitates. "If you want to."
"A few hours in a car with you as opposed to you just being here, yeah, I want to. What time?"
That look's on her face, like she's trying not to show how happy she is. "Leave at… nine."
"PM?"
"Shut up."
"Done."
She should know by now that he'll easily call off work to drive five hours to her, drive fifty hours, however long. But now it's small insecurities like this, and not the kind as young teenagers that had her thinking he'd fall victim to a soul reaping prophecy.
It's fine. Percy just misses her and is a little angry at just about everything these days.
They end the Iris message, and it's a relief that they only have two more nights of this. He can't stand how real the calls look, with depth and the glitching rainbow hues. Percy wants to reach out and touch her. It wasn't enough to meet half way four weeks ago. He needs Annabeth in his arms, staying there forever. He wants them to join the ranks of statued lovers embracing, looking into each other's eyes, with a placard below detailing their romance.
The next night, Annabeth tells him she's moved their joint belongings from last school year to their new apartment.
"Why'd you move everything by yourself?" he asks.
"It was only two trips, I don't have a lot."
"Yeah, I know."
"We'll be there in three weeks."
He swallows. "Yeah."
Percy has spent the summer wishing for it to end, but he is now more worried for what the future holds.
When he can't sleep, he recalls being little, before Gabe came into the picture. He and his mom in a single twin bed, her rubbing his back to soothe him to sleep. Sometimes she'd stop and he'd jerk around to have her continue.
It's those comforts that no longer exist, and being back home awakens the memories. Yeah, that did happen. Yeah, that was important to me. And he'd forgotten about it.
What he actually does when he cannot sleep is step out onto the fire escape and smoke for a good twenty minutes. It gets hazy about halfway through, so he really only knows if he checked the clock beforehand.
It calms him down, slows his mind. He's never really understood cigarette smokers who say it calms them. He and Annabeth tried it once and it made him kinda jumpy. Maybe all the nicotine is placebo. He doesn't care anyway. The weed, though, that's real. He gets it, he needs to save his scraps of money from his shitty waiter job, but this is a really nice indulgence for when he doesn't have Annabeth to take refuge in.
Percy doesn't know why he's been so fucking irritable. Tense all over, so much so that it's difficult to sleep. He misses Annabeth and he feels he's regressed a few years, he knows, but he can't turn it off and it makes him want to rip out his insides and throw them out the window, shattering the glass in the process. He'll pick up the shards and use them to excavate whatever irritations are left inside him, whatever impossible itches spread further.
It doesn't help that many of his teenage-hood decorations are still tacked to the walls and cluttering his desk. It was fine last year, when Annabeth was staying the summer and they were at Camp for a time anyway. And Percy loves Camp, but it isn't the same one he grew up in. It's an entirely different place when Annabeth isn't there, either.
He's never known a Camp Half-Blood without an Annabeth Chase in it. She exists in every inch of those walls and every blade of grass. He wonders if he rewrote the place for her at all. She had five years strung on her necklace before he came barging in. When did he get added to her mental image of home?
He thinks of little but Annabeth on the drive upstate. How tired she's been, how lonely, the sound of her laugh, the shape of her eyes, what she chooses to tell about her day, what he pries out of her.
When they were kids, Percy couldn't think of a single similarity between them. Her serious demeanor, but witty humor and easy embarrassment. Her relationship with the godly world, his lack of one. Seriously, she list started at "being alive" and ended at "both 12 years old." He never thought Annabeth would be his friend in a million years.
But now, Percy thinks they're a lot more similar than different. Maybe they rubbed off on each other, through stubbornness and mannerisms and sense of humor. All the times they communicated through a simple glance. That's another thing Percy's missed. He doesn't have to explain himself to Annabeth, and neither does she. They just get it.
He parks his car at 1:39 PM. Just the very idea of having her in his arms in a few minutes makes the sun shine brighter, the flowers smell a little sweeter.
Percy practically skips to the apartment building. Swings the heavy door open, smells that dusty odor of old buildings, and jams the buzzer. Door unlocked, and now he's running up the stairs, two at a time.
He doesn't even have to knock. Half a second is allowed to be spent looking at her before Annabeth's launching herself into his arms. Percy holds her tight, his heart clenching when her shoulders shake and the sobs come out muffled through his tee.
"Oh, baby…"
"I missed you," she croaks.
"Missed you too." He kisses the top of her head, rests his chin on the spot. "More than anything."
It's a bit like living in a world filled with smoke, so thick it's hazardous. And suddenly the sky opens up, sucking all the death with it, leaving behind clarity.
Annabeth kisses him hard, exhaling on the way. Percy imagines this is what it feels like to be an exploding star.
She leads him inside the apartment, and he doesn't even get a tour apart from him using the bathroom. She's ready when he steps out, suitcase standing beside her, duffle bag over her shoulder.
Percy takes a moment to take her in, six steps away. He wants her to know that she changed his life for the better. He doesn't want her to know that she changed it for the worse, too.
How could someone ever recover from Annabeth? She's had him stumbling for nine years. Tripping to catch up to her during capture the flag when his armor was three sizes too big, tripping when it was clear how many steps ahead of him she was. He always tried to read her mind when she had already moved on from the thought.
And then there was that week spent apart, Annabeth in chains while he did his best to run after her. When the Hunters held him back as he screamed for her, unlocking a part of himself that had been buzzing around, not yet a solid feeling.
How he tried to make up for the loss of her during that quest. Think first, stay on task. Percy quickly realized that that was not him, and that's why they worked so well together. They were complementary. A mutually beneficial team.
"You look different," he says.
Annabeth raises an eyebrow.
Lonely, he wants to say. She looks really alone.
She's been living with a friend, and the apartment is decorated no where near Annabeth's taste. It's littered with rainbow streamers and displayed vinyls and ornate rose gold mirrors. From the little Percy has seen, Annabeth had barely decorated her bedroom, apart from a collection of books and a few framed photos. It gave Percy total déjà vu, transporting him back to Annabeth's barren San Francisco bedroom.
She has no desire to stay here any longer. Percy takes her suitcase and they leave, dragging themselves down three flights of stairs.
They step out to a dark gray sky, and Percy really hopes it won't be the type of rainfall where he'll have to pull over, not seeing five feet in front of him. Maybe he could produce a sort of shield around the car? Push the rain out of the way to make the road a little visible?
He's thinking this as he starts the car, the vents pushing the humidity out of the space. It's weird not talking to Annabeth. It was easy, though painful at times, to call every day. But actually being in each others presence feels heavy. There are things to say, Percy just can't figure out what.
They make it about fifteen minutes before Annabeth's telling him to take the next exit and he's pulling into an abandoned hotel parking lot and thanking the gods for the rain bleeding down the windows so he can actually take her clothes off.
They're there for nearly an hour. Their own secluded backseat. Quick at first, not fast enough, then lingering and relearning what has not been felt in over a month. They'll have to be nearly silent at night when home.
Her tears on his chest are beginning to dry. Percy trails his fingertips over her naked back, her face tucked in the crook of his neck. The rain pitter-patters over the roof.
"Why didn't you text me more?" he asks, trying to tease. Something he didn't really care about but feels appropriate to mention.
"Text you…?" Annabeth pushes her hips forward an imperceptible amount.
Percy nods.
"Gotta keep you on your feet," she mumbles. "Can't have you expecting it."
"It was equal amounts to when we're actually in school."
She raises her head, gives him a bored look. He'd never tell her, but his heart hurts every time she looks away from him. Come back.
"Come on," she argues. "No, it was not."
"I'll make a fucking spreadsheet."
"Do it, it turns me on."
"I know, that's why I said it."
A smile stretches across her face. His favorite, most beautiful thing in the world.
The appreciation had been a gradual, unintentionally spread out thing. Him telling her that he likes her teeth, her lips are pretty, he always stares at the tiny moles on her face, the slope of her nose, wonders just how wide her eyes can go. That he thinks about her all the time. Her face, her body, her hair, her voice. The way she laughs and cries and shouts and whispers. The need to experience it all grew every day they were apart.
It's like his body and soul could feel that its anchor was no longer visible in the deep sea. It was the longest they'd been apart in five years. Those two days in early July barely counted.
"My parents are gonna send out a search party if we don't get going," Percy says, regrettably.
Annabeth sighs, tipping her head into his chest. "I missed being alone with you."
"Me too." He runs his fingers through her braids. He loves this style on her. All of them look stunning on her, but he can follow along the thin, silky plaits, curl his fingers around the soft waves at the end.
"Three more weeks."
"Yeah," he says hoarsely.
A double edged sword. It opens up a pit of anxiety in his gut. Even worse, now, that she's actually in his arms. She'll be so, so disappointed in him.
But yes, three weeks indeed until they're living together on their own again. No dorms, no parents, no roommates. As August carries on, he knows he's running out of time.
They get their clothes back on. Percy curses himself for the wasted gas, but hot sex in a humid car was not about to happen. Annabeth deserves better than that grossness, even if Percy's pretty sure that kind of thing turns her on. The aftermath would've been nasty, though, so today was not the day.
Then they're off. The rain is moving opposite to them. Annabeth stretches her arm across the back of his seat, playing with the curls at the nape of his neck. He wants to say hey, you stole my move, but it feels too nice for her to potentially stop.
She rifles though the glove box, all the CD cases clacking together. "I swear, this hasn't been updated in years."
"You can't update the past, Annabeth."
"You're such a dad." She procures the Siamese Dream disc and pushes it through the slot. That CD was for her, anyway.
Percy taps his thumbs along the steering wheel, following along with the drums. "You know this song is about suicide?"
"Is that why you like it so much?"
"Jeez, you're mean."
Annabeth and her surprises. She leans over the center console and kisses him hard and intense. Percy jumps, shifting to keep his eyes on the road and still get kissed, like he isn't going 83 down the highway.
She falls back into her seat.
"This is why you don't have your license," Percy exclaims, breathless. Annabeth can be insane.
She laughs. "Shut up, I'm taking the test in Ithaca."
"Actually?"
She looks straight ahead. "Very supportive, Percy. Gold star."
"No, I love it."
"I have a feeling this year is going to be better."
Percy takes her hand and kisses the back of it. "If you say so."
What has changed to make it so? Has this summer been so awful that they're both willing to be better this fall? Will Annabeth forgo the parties and the drinking and the stumbling? What has to change to rewrite Percy's brain and make him less volatile? Must she be rewritten as well?
Her work is only going to consume more of her. Percy supposes they'll have to wait and see. He really hates it.
To make up for his lack of Annabeth and when work wasn't stealing his soul, he'd swim or call Blackjack to fly around. He contemplated doing many reckless things, things he would never do in Annabeth's presence. Doing tricks off the diving board or at that skate park that have broken people's necks, jumping off a building and wondering if it'd feel like getting hit with a pillow.
The Curse had him chasing all sorts of vengeful adrenaline when surrounded by hoards of monsters, but it isn't the same without a war. Now he has a physical need for Annabeth and a lack of physical pain, save for the burn scars that like to flare up and catch on fire.
Because the thing is, it feels good to hurt. It felt good when throwing the first punch at bullies and it'd sting all the way up to his elbow. It'd feel good when a hit landed while sparring. He'd wonder if this was the Poseidon blood in him. The father of monsters. The father of so many who had tried to kill Percy. He had to have some of that in him. And it's had nowhere to go for a long time now.
There's a lot of maintenance that comes with being a retired hero. Balm the burn scars, heal the ache in his lower back, stop acquiring Riptide at every minor disturbance.
Percy fits his key through the door and about three seconds pass before his mom is hugging Annabeth, both of them swaying.
"Later than you thought," Paul remarks. "Lot of traffic?"
"Yeah, it was horrible," Percy says. Annabeth pinches his arm. He's not wrong, there was traffic, like there's always traffic on a Friday evening.
His mom kisses his cheek. "Sorry we already ate, honey."
"I literally told you to. We're just gonna sit on the couch."
Annabeth goes to put her bags in Percy's room while he preheats the oven for pizza. She comes back out and the four of them make small talk around the dinner table, mostly Annabeth catching his parents up on the events of her summer. Unsurprisingly, she plays down how miserable it was. Percy doesn't say anything though. She might talk to his mom about it later, but the internship is already over and done with. He can tell she's ready to never talk about it again, until it becomes something to laugh about, or vent about in a way that no longer genuinely upsets her.
The conversation soon wears out, with his mom kissing Annabeth's head and saying Get some sleep, kiddo, you've had a long day.
Then it's just Percy, Annabeth, and their Food Network show. See, there's a formula with these cooking competitions. You can always tell who's going to lose based on how cocky they are in the interviews. A type of subversion that the producers are probably really proud of coming up with. If someone talks a big game, they're out. Works like a charm.
Annabeth finishes her third slice and dies on the couch.
"Damn, you were hungry."
She kicks him in the gut.
"No, it's great, I'm glad you actually ate."
Percy never told her how seriously worried he was for her over the summer in regards to taking care of herself. She'd have meal plans during the school years and camp or his mom's cooking during the summer. Percy frequently had to pull her away from whatever she was working on so she could eat.
And so a stressful job that overworked her, paired with living with someone she barely interacted with, wasn't the most promising of her health. Percy was grateful for the amount of times he'd call at night, and she'd cook while he watched or listened. He couldn't look out for her during the day, but he'd make sure she got dinner.
He picks up her greasy plate and says, "You should check the fridge."
Annabeth narrows her eyes and follows him into the kitchen. Through the rush of the running water, he hears her gasp. "Thank you so much, I love you."
Percy chuckles. She pops the plastic container of camp strawberries open and pops one into his mouth that he accepts gratefully.
A few weeks ago, Percy had realized he didn't know where exactly camp dropped off its strawberry supply. So he called Chiron and picked up a container for Annabeth yesterday. She'd had more nectar than the real thing in recent history.
Annabeth leans her back against the counter, holding the container. "I'm so ready to sleep in your bed. It's basically my childhood bed."
"Not the one you actually spent your childhood in?"
"No, because every bunk was the same. It was everyone's bed, too."
Percy dries his hands and leans his hip against the granite. He can't fight the smile on his face. "This one's mine, too."
"You don't count. We're the same person."
"Right."
She kisses his jaw. "I'm going to unpack a little."
She pulls away, but Percy tugs on her wrist and brings her into a hug. Just to have her in his arms for a moment longer. Annabeth easily accepts, locking her wrists around his torso, covering the small of his back. Percy breathes deeply, his cheek pressed against the top of her head.
Annabeth leaves a minute or an hour later, and her absence is immediately felt. He rubs his thumb over a swirling burn scar on his palm.
Percy doesn't want to do anything, but goes crazy when there is nothing to do. There are always things to do, but he doesn't want to do anything. He wants to skip forward a few years from now when everything is figured out. He'd think having Annabeth back would fix all this, but it's easy to forget last year. Percy wasn't any less irritable then. Eventually Annabeth just stopped talking about school.
When Percy comes back to his bedroom and locks the door, Annabeth's just finished changing into a tank top (see through, mind you) and a pair of his boxers.
He exhales deeply. "You still have that list, don't you?"
"What list?" she asks sweetly, tilting her head. Her lips are tinted red from the strawberries.
"Ways to make me go insane or whatever."
"Ways to drive Percy crazy, you mean."
Hands on her hips, he walks them backwards to his bed. "That's the one."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
When they were younger, Annabeth shared that she hated wearing tank tops because they made her shoulders cold. Then, when they began dating and he was seeing all new versions of Annabeth, he started to see her wear more tanks.
He wondered if it was for him, because he'd blurted that this was so fucking hot when sliding the straps down her cold shoulders. But then he'd think ew, no, Annabeth would never sacrifice her comfort so her boyfriend could gawk at her, waist up.
And Percy never would've said it to her during those first several months of dating, when he was scared shitless of saying the wrong thing and they'd potentially fight like they had over the last two summers. But that was when nights spent together were few and far between, and they were having sex, but nothing was particularly sexy yet.
Anyway, it took until junior year of high school for him to casually but not so casually bring it up, and she laughed in his face for five minutes on how this took up such a sizable portion of his brain.
I don't care if my shoulders are a little cold, Seaweed Brain, that was when I was, like, fourteen. I like the way you look at me. I like how it makes me feel. Good?
Percy sits in the top corner of his bed, Annabeth at the foot end. She's on her knees, the plaid boxers flaring where they end mid-thigh, the tank thinner than a tissue. She's biting her lip, her hair pulled back, drawing attention to the coral between her collarbones.
"Have you figured out how I look different yet?" she asks.
She looks like an angel in the light. Shadowed and golden, a halo of white. Percy doesn't know what he possibly could've done that he's allowed to float in her orbit.
"Think I just missed you. You're a solid form again."
Annabeth comes a bit closer. The bed caves in at her knees. "You look different, too. First, you need a haircut."
Percy runs his hand through the loose curls. "I thought you liked when I was fluffy."
"It's cute, but the shorter style is more handsome."
"But you can't pull on it when it's short."
She shoves his face with a giggle, and his heart expands like freezing water. "Shut up."
Percy pulls her in by the backs of her thighs and kisses her. She's still on her knees, forcing his head back so as not to break the kiss. His hands cover her back, feel the warmth of her skin through the fabric.
Annabeth pulls back with a damp noise. He can barely see her face, fully blocking the dim lamp behind her. There's a single dot of white in her lidded eyes. Those two moons jump back and forth, tracking the movement of his own eyes.
She whispers, "I feel like there's so much to tell you, but I can't think of what."
He swallows. "Then don't worry about it right now. We have plenty of time."
"Maybe I just have to get used to you again."
"It wasn't that long."
"Compared to seeing each other every day beforehand? Yeah, it was, Percy. I know there's things you have to tell me, too." Annabeth lowers her face to him, her breath warm and minty against his lips. "But you don't have to yet."
He runs his hands along the length of her body. It's different than in the car. Deeper, quieter, darker. It's the sharing of a secret. Building heat, swapping bodies, discovering what's so different.
Later, he pulls her into him, arms wrapped around her, knees slotted along the back of hers. Her tank bunches around her waist, her shoulders cold.
Percy burrows his face into her hair, breathing in the sweet lemon, letting it filter through his body and extinguish the fire.
"This is so high school," Annabeth mumbles.
"I've felt so high school the last three months."
"Bad?"
He nods.
"Yeah?" She turns to face him.
"Beth." He hears her take a measured breath. "I'm not going back to school."
"Yeah," she breathes out.
"Yeah?" Can she hear his heart break? How long had she been expecting it? Before or after all her encouragements?
"I was thinking that. I just didn't want to encourage you one way or another. Do you feel bad?"
"You're not—" Percy has to swallow so his voice stays intact. "You're not surprised. Were you… lying to me, saying I could do it?"
She holds his face. "No, never. You tried. You didn't fail, it just isn't for you. I'm a little pissed at the notion that it is for everyone. I'm really proud of you."
He moves his cheeks around, bites his bottom lip. "For trying?"
"Sure. But for knowing you had enough." One of her hands caresses his hair. "No need to torture yourself over something not meant for you."
"Don't kick me, but I think you're what's meant for me. Nothing else. Not like you have your things."
Annabeth is silent for a long moment. Percy doesn't feel bad for the confession when it's the most honest thing he's ever said.
"I think we're different enough that that's okay," she says. "You're meant for me, too, by the way. I could live without architecture, but not you."
"Wow. That might be the greatest declaration of love you've ever said."
"I mean it."
"I know."
"So, are you… staying here?" Her voice goes higher at the end, more quiet.
"No," Percy says, without hesitation. "I'm wherever you are."
"Okay."
He leans in to kiss her forehead. That easy acceptance—not easy, it has taken years to foster and has only started to be used with mild ease—might just be everything.