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Annabeth Chase is a person of many words.
This is not an exaggeration!!! Despite her dyslexia, her ADHD, and the other many, many distressing variables all working against her to tie a knot in her plans, she’s actually very, very fond of staring at pages for hours at a time. She’ll never beat the nerdy black girl allegations, but it’s totally worth it.
Percy had always called them lame for that. Said there were a million other exciting things that they could be doing, a billion other places that they could be seeing. In retaliation, she called him illiterate.
He, as one would expect, was not happy about this, and very kindly told her that he did not share the same sentiments, at all, no sir. He told her that he was well aware of this, too, so unfortunately for both of them, her point was INVALID, NULL, AND VOID!!! With not one, not two, but THREE exclamation points!!! Vetoed!!!
Annabeth reads the hell out of their books, anyway.
Two twenty-year old demigods walk out of a dormitory building. This is a joke in and of itself already, and that’s quite literally the hook, string, sinker, and punchline.
Annabeth Chase, Dictator of the Dictionary, squints at her boyfriend. “Where are we going, Percy?”
“Only god knows, babe,” a clump of gold hair yaps at her, all blue-green eyes and tanned skin and a single hoop earring. “Only god knows-”
“Oh, please! You’re so irritating!”
“Can you just let me surprise you?!”
Annabeth glowers at the sky hard enough to give Zeus chills. “No. You ruined my study hour, Percy.”
“Every hour is a study hour for you, library lady,” he replies, reaching for her hand. “You and I both know you’re gonna get a headache if you don’t go outside at least once a week.”
Annabeth winds their fingers together, purses her lips. “I go outside, Percy,” she says, and she tries to pull up a time when she did just in case he asks, and is incredibly unsuccessful. “I just want to avoid exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays, obviously.”
Percy looks at her like she’s the idiot. “You give yourself mandated sun time?”
“Yeah, and I wear sunscreen when I do, too, so I don’t end up crispifying myself before the age of forty.” She shoots him a look. “Unlike you.”
“I’m the son of Poseidon,” Percy says haughtily, tugging her along as they walk down the street. “I was born with sunscreen in my genes.”
“Ha! You don’t even have a wallet in your pocket right now.”
“Oh, my girlfriend’s a comedian!” he laughs, pulling her closer, and he presses a kiss to her temple just for good measure. “You’re so funny, you know that?”
“Don’t make me blush,” she mumbles, and that statement is futile because it’s exactly what she’s doing. “Enough with the flattery.”
“But you’ll complain about me dragging you places if I don't say nice things-”
“I complain anyway, Percy.”
“Yeah, I know, buttt-”
“Percy?”
Percy looks down at her. “Huh?”
Annabeth looks up at him, puts on her best “please stop talking before I take some seriously drastic action such as drop-kicking you into the nearest source of potable water.” “Please be quiet?”
Percy laughs in her face, kisses her again. “No thank you, but thanks for asking.”
Perseus Jackson is Annabeth Chase’s biggest bother.
This is not to say he actually bothers her. She loves him, obviously, and not a day goes by when she doesn’t physically let him know, or straight up tell him exactly that.
Perseus Jackson is Annabeth Chase’s biggest bother because she’s just so in love with him, and the worst part is that she always has been. It’s actually embarrassing. Genuinely.
Take two nights ago, for example. Percy was at his dad’s house for underwater bonding time- because he can somehow swim at Mach Two without imploding himself or exploding himself or blowing the whole damn ocean up- and Annabeth was minding her own business, in her own bed. Texting Percy, too, because they both decided that they’re SO over the lack of communication thing, and would happily slay any monster that decided to interrupt their dates.
(They’d even made a contract over it. Talk about extra.)
Annabeth had been asking for underwater data, because of course she did. She’s never been to Posideon’s palace, funnily enough, but what with the way Percy’s talked about it and talkies it up to be that amazing… well, she’ll take all she can get.
Especially if it pertains to Atlantean architecture.
Percy sends pictures, as one would expect from such a diligent, amazing boyfriend as himself. A couple of thrones, a shell-lined ceiling. A very, very unflattering one of Triton in the infamous .5 lens- Babe [blue heart] saved your photo to camera roll- one of Poseidon himself glaring down at the screen, the corners of his lips twitching upwards just so, and there’s one of Percy’s mermaid cousins, and one of a school of fish swimming through his bedroom, and one of-
Well, it’s Percy, obviously, but Annabeth sees it and has a heart attack.
It’s Percy, right, and he’s underwater in this one, illuminated by jellyfish, floaty blonde hair turned brown due to the depth, eyes curved into crescents because that was how they got when he smiled, especially at her, and he-
He’s holding a shell. It’s a tiny thing compared to the millions of the other ones she’s got from him already, and it’s about the size of her hand, but it’s so pretty.
Saw this and thought of you, the text under that reads, and-
He’s so cute in this picture it’s insane. Annabeth is insane.
It’s- it’s-
It’s Percy.
(Annabeth Chase is in-fucking-sane, by the way!!!)
Piper McClean, girl of the year, barges in at half past nine to the sound of screaming, and is both sorely disappointed and immensely relieved when she realizes it’s just Annabeth, rolling around in her bed and kicking her feet and giggling, but she stops as soon as Piper kicks her in the butt and tells her to shut the hell up.
So Annabeth is in love with her boyfriend! That’s kind of the point!
-
“And Estelle says she loves you more than me,” Percy blabs, taking a sip of his ice water, which he’s conveniently floated up and twirled around his head, just because he’s too lazy to crook his head down forty-five degrees and use his straw. “Which is, like, totally lame, because?? Last time I checked, I was her big brother, not you, (thank the gods) and-”
Annabeth is staring at his pretty, pretty kissable face. “Mmhm.”
“And I’m the one with the cool magic water powers and the big sword and you-” Percy cuts himself off scowls. “Are you even listening to me right now?”
Absolutely not! “What th- of course,” Annabeth says quickly, shaking her head and squishing the hearts over her eyes into the void. “I was just- there was a- uh…”
“And you totally weren’t present,” Percy sighs exasperatedly, but it’s fond all the same. “Alright, Wise Woman. What were you calculating this time?”
How many times I can kiss you before you get sick of me. “Nothing.”
“And you are a li-ar,” Percy cuts in, stirring his drink with a black straw, a grin on his face. “You’re such a terrible liar, Beth.”
“I’m a great liar.”
“That’s a lie.”
“You just proved my point, Percy.”
Percy’s brows furrow, confused. “What th- okay, nevermind.”
Annabeth blinks at him innocently. “What?”
“I’m not playing mental gymnastics with you,” Percy says indignantly. “That’s not my area of athletics.”
She’s gonna get him. “And what would that be?”
“Endurance,” Percy says smugly, clamping the staw between his teeth. “And stamina, too. Wanna see?”
Yes!!! No!!! “Perseus Jackson!”
“Ouh, scary,” he laughs, but he’s blushing at his own joke, which she finds adorably stupidly adorable. “Sorry, sorry.”
“Get your head out of the storm drain,” she hisses, looking around like anyone actually cares, like there’s anyone else seated on the patio outside of Little Scitaly’s Pizza and Pasta Place. “And out of your ass, too. Be respectful-”
“I’m always respectful!”
“And I’m single. When’s our food getting here?”
“How the subject changes,” Percy sighs, and then waves a hand. “Can we get a waiter over here, please?”
“Not so loud,” Annabeth hisses, smacking his arm. “They’ve got ears that work just fine, Percy!”
“And my girlfriend’s beating me up now, so you better double time it!”
She hates him. “Percy!”
The man in question flashes her a devastatingly beautiful grin, perfectly pleased with her obvious distress. “Percy is present, ma’am.”
Annabeth slumps back in her seat, glares. “You’re lucky these people like you,” she huffs. “You’re so overly-confident in your extrovertedness.”
“See, I knew you liked me for my personality!”
Annabeth likes him because of everything. “Yeah, whatever, kelp curls. I don’t think anyone’s coming.”
Percy picks at a salt-studded lock of golden hair. “I’m blonde, Beth. They don’t have blonde kelp in the oc-”
“Your hair is yellow, smartass!”
“It’s not!”
“It is, too!”
“Okay, you know WHAT?!” Percy splutters angrily, and somewhere on the horizon, the waves jump a foot. “The only reason it’s like this now is because YOUR girlfriend stole my toner!”
Annabeth can be angry, too. “Didn’t YOUR boyfriend steal my curl cream?!”
“You don’t have curls right now,” Percy says, pointing to her freshly done Fulani boho-whatever-the-fuck twists, courtesy of Piper spending a ten hour night hacking at her head. “Leave Jason outta this.”
“Spaghetti for him,” the waiter says stiffly, dropping a plate down in front of Percy. “And oysters for her.”
Percy blinks at the plate, and then at the guy. “Terminus,” he says coolly, blue eyes flashing. “Long time no see.”
“Praetor Perseus Jackson,” Terminus snaps, clearly not pleased. “Not long enough.”
“Can you remind me what I did to you?”
“No, thank you. Enjoy your meal.”
Annabeth stares. “Terminus? Uh. Are you- why are you here?”
The statue scowls at her. “Your graecus boyfriend,” he says, jerking a marbled thumb at a red-faced Percy, “jokingly suggested to his superior, Praetor Grace, that I would look good with the ladies, and so- because they thought it would be funny-”
“It- it was a joke, man,” Percy splutters, a little angry, a little embarrassed. “I can always ch-”
“NO!” Terminus cries. “No more meddling, Jackson! No thanks to you, I’ll be serving carbonara until the second coming of Nero!”
Percy huffs. “Third, actually.”
“Fourth, screw you!”
“What the- I’m your superior, you little-”
Annabeth kicks Percy under the table, and he bites his lip super duper hard and shuts up. “I apologize, Terminus,” she grits out, forcing a smile. “I’ll speak to Jason about your… situation, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Terminus scoffs, but it sounds almost grateful. “Thank you, Miss Chase,” he says haughtily, and then he turns his gaze to Percy. “She was always the better part of you, y’know.”
Percy glowers with the force of a thousand suns. “Erode.”
Terminus laughs in his face. “Oh, you wish!”
“I love pasta,” Percy says happily, stuffing his face. “But especially if it’s soupy. I love soupy pasta.”
Annabeth studies his face and his squinty eyes and his Alfredo-stained smile. “What is wrong with you?”
“Everything!” Percy giggles, and she wants to crunch him into a ball and throw him out to sea. “You knew that, though…”
“Ugh- boys! Where are your manners?”
Percy shrugs. “Up someone’s ass.”
“Can you crawl up there and get them, please?”
“Nuh uh.” Percy waves a finger. “I don’t think the god of the day would be too happy about that.”
Thunder rumbles on the horizon. Percy glares at the sky. “Shut up!”
Annabeth spears another oyster. “Oof. Someone’s mad today.”
Percy shoves another forkful of pasta in his mouth. “I’m never mad.”
Silence.
“Okay, I’m mad sometimes, but that’s not the point!”
Annabeth licks at a spear of lemon. “Are you going to tell me what is?”
“Depends.”
“Try me, Beach Ball.”
“Well,” Percy coughs, looking nervously from side to side, “you know how I can move water?”
Oh, brother. “Yes?”
“And how I can do that, with, like… soda??”
Annabeth doesn’t like this. “Yes.”
“And any other liquid too, right???”
Akhlys, something whispers, and Annabeth swallows down some fragment of fear. “Yes- Percy, where are you going with this, exactly?”
“DON’T get mad,” Percy blabs, which lets her know that she probably should get ready to do exactly that. “I just wanted to show you-“
“Show me what- I swear, Jackson-”
Percy points down to the table. “Stop yelling at me for a second and just look, Beth!”
Annabeth looks.
There’s Percy’s plate on the table, half full of pasta. Both of them stare at it.
“Huh,” Percy mutters, looking just as confused as she feels. “That’s fuckin’ weird- I thought’-”
And then the pasta explodes.
“PERCY!” Annabeth screeches, scrambling out of her chair and practically leaping to the other side of the patio. “What the HE-”
“It’s not possessed!” Percy cries, hands outstretched. “It’s not, okay?! I swear-”
“Your FOOD is FLOATING!”
“I’m the one doing that!”
Oh. Annabeth totally knew that. “Well- you better be careful!” she splutters. “Piper JUST did my hair, and-”
“I’ve got it under control!” Percy exclaims, and it’s kinda true. “Okay, okay! You can look now-”
“You’re gonna get sauce on my hair!”
“Gods- no, I’m not! Look at it, will you?!”
So Annabeth has seen a lot of weird shit go down in her lifetime. Floating food, though? Well, that sure was a first.
“Annabeth Chase,” the spaghetti spells out, marinara sauce held up in the air in misshapen hearts. “I love you.”
Percy smiles weakly- her face must look ridiculous. “I was practicing, y’know? To cope- I thought this would be fun, but I’m so-”
“You’re so cute,” Annabeth beams, and Percy’s neck and ears grow red as his jaw drops. “Aw, Perce- you’re so adorab-”
The pasta falls back into the plate with a plop. “If you call me that again, Beth,” Percy mumbles, scraping his chair back and sitting down with a thump, all pouty like he’s twelve and ridiculous, “I might actually die.”
“Good,” Annabeth says proudly, and she strides over and kisses his cheek. “We’re both well aware that I’ve dedicated my life to ending yours.”
The sun is setting. New Rome is coming alive. Annabeth is drinking an ambrosia-themed mimosa, and Percy is on his third plate of pasta. The pant-wearer of the relationship, however, is using her Eye of Athens to count the amplitude of the waves when something decides to speak to her.
“Oh, Annabeth,” a voice says, twenty years old and full of mischievous impishness. “Earth to Annie- are you okay?”
“Michael Jackson for karaoke,” she murmurs idly, watching Apollo trudge on towards the horizon. “I’ll tell Frank and Hazel. It can be a date.”
Percy scowls in the corner of her vision. Thanks to the Eye, Annabeth can see his stupid cute little Percy Pout™ even when she’s not looking at him. “Annabeth.”
“Hm.”
“Annabeth…”
“Mhm?”
He snaps his fingers in her face. “Annabelle.”
Annabeth counts another wave, flicks his hand. “Shush.”
Percy glares. “You shush.”
Annabeth notes the tenth crest thirty seconds later when a spaghetti string floats in front of her.
“Look at me!” the pasta squeaks, voice high and tinny and totally annoying. “Look at me, Annabeth Chase!”
Annabeth’s watching a surfer, but at this point, enough is enough. “Percy…”
“Percy? Who’s percy? I don’t know a Percy.”
Annabeth glares at her boyfriend, but he’s eating his food just fine like he’s not practicing sorcery- or even worse, ventriloquism- the only off thing about him the fact that his eyebrows are halfway to his hairline and he’s clearly trying not to laugh. “Oh, you-”
The pasta twists itself into a person, a glutinous string crossing his arms. “You totally want to eat me, Annabell Chase.”
Annabeth’s lips twist. “Keep talking and I’ll stuff you into a meatball.”
“You suck!” the pasta yelps, and then it almost frowns. “Please eat me, though?”
A sigh. “Whatever.”
The pasta inches forward, then halts. “Wait,” it says slowly. “Close your eyes, though.”
Annabeth squints at the spaghetti, and then at Percy, who looks as cool as a clam. “Why…?”
“Just do it,” the pasta begs. “It’ll be totally worth it. Probably.”
Annabeth sighs some more. “Fine,” she grumbles, letting her lashes flutter closed. “But I swear-
The spaghetti pokes at her lips. Annabeth gives into the Afro-Italian-Urge™ and bites it.
Chews. Swallows.
Does it again, and then again, and-
And she opens her mouth to say something like, “Okay, I get it, the joke’s over,” but just as she forms the first letter of that first word, she feels a set of too-familiar lips on her own and it’s him, because of course it is, and he’s smiling about it and she can feel it and it’s the Lady and the Tramp and she’ll never watch another movie with him again.
“Sorry, Beth,” the pasta murmurs- and its last words are an apology, salt on her mouth and her nose to his. “Couldn’t resist.”
Annabeth can’t, either. She winds a hand around the back of his neck and slides her fingers into his hair, and she pulls the stupid pasta in to kiss all over again.
-
Gelato. Peach and pistachio and Percy in a cup, blue raspberry and blueberry syrup in a cone.
Two spoons.
“I like this,” Percy tells her, arm in arm as they walk on the surface of the ocean half a mile out, two figures bathed in moonlight. “This is nice.”
Annabeth is happily eating a small cup of ice cream, her one and only cheat sweet- she’d given up sugar a while back, but this was an exception. “Yeah.”
“This is nice,” Percy repeats, almost like he forgot what he said five seconds prior. “This. Is nice. We should do it again sometime.”
“Yes.”
“We should do it again sometime soon.”
“Mhm.”
Percy frowns. “Did they put sleepy powder in your gelato, Beth?”
“No,” Annabeth laughs, shaking her head and snapping out of her thoughts. “I was just thinking.”
“All you do is think, babe,” Percy grouses, bare feet kicking foamy waves and slender fingers pressing into the divots of his waffle cone. “Do you ever stop?”
“Well, the average brain completes about one tri-
“Oh, forget it!”
“Sor-ry,” she snickers, pressing a sticky kiss to his cheek. “Are you upset?”
Percy looks away from her. “I dunno.”
Annabeth blinks. That wasn’t what she expected. “Percy?”
“I said I don’t know,” he says, but it's just a tad bit too forceful for him. “I would have to think about it.”
“Wha- oh, come on! You never think!”
“And you always do,” he bites back, and his words are sharp. “And that’s the problem.”
Annabeth blinks some more, genuinely lost. Their arm twitches. “Excuse me?”
One calming breath. “I’m not mad at you,” Percy says, already trying to chart the ship back to course before it sails off the map. “I’m not even really that upset- and if I am- which I might be- I don’t know why, but-”
She can fix this. “What would you be upset about, Percy?”
A pause. “I think,” he says slowly, the crashing ocean a shimmering reflection in sea-blue eyes, “I would have to say you.”
She figured. Obviously. Annabeth looks down at her shoes. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She can fix this. “Alright. What did I do, Percy?”
Percy sighs. “It’s less about what you did, Annabeth,” he says softly, “And more about what you didn’t do.”
That wasn’t what she expected at ALL, and Annabeth slows in her steps, suddenly defensive. “And what didn’t I do, Percy?”
Percy looks like he wants to give it up. “First of all,” he lists, fingers and tongue stained blue, “I haven’t seen you in almost two weeks.”
Well, that’s just SO not true! “What the- yes, you did! You saw me yesterday, and the day be-”
“That was over a five minute facetime call I had to remind you about,” he snaps, eyes flashing with hurt. “That you didn't even pick up the first time I rang- I had to go to Piper to get to you, and she was off with her ex-boyfriend for two hours so she didn’t even see my-”
“You were- weren’t you crashing at your dad’s place, anyway? You didn’t have to ca-”
“No, Annabeth, you don’t get to make this about me,” Percy glares, shaking his head. “You asked me to call you, and I did, and you didn’t respond. I was at my dad’s house because I’d just spent the last three days training those kids in the forum on top of all my classes and hopping between here and the senate, and when I showed up at your dorm to relax, you told me to leave you alone.”
Rebuttal. “In case you have forgotten, I am also on the council,” Annabeth grits out, her own anger rising because she was wrong for that, probably, and she knows it. “I also train. I also have classes, many of which are more complex than yours-” low blow- “And I was studying for a degree that I’ll need for my future so that I can have something to do for the rest of my life!”
Percy stares at her, hurt. “Am I not a part of that?”
“WHAT?!” Annabeth cries, and that’s what makes her angry, because Percy's been written into the equation for her life long before both of them knew what a pencil was. “What- Percy, are you CRAZ-”
“You don’t have to raise your voice, Annabeth,” Percy says softly, and as he gazes out over the foam-topped, deep blue waves, he sounds much too tired for only twenty. “I just miss you. That’s all.”
The worst thing about Percy Jackson, Annabeth thinks, is that as much as he can make her feel a million times better about everything else, he can oh-so-easily make her feel a million times worse about herself. It’s a nasty habit he’s never gotten rid of, a glitch in his system that messes up her own.
It’s unintentional- it always is, but it always gets to her in a way nothing else can, tugs at her heart that makes her regret every angry word she’s ever said to him over the course of eight years. It makes her feel bad, it makes her say sorry, and it’s the only reason that she ever admits that she can be wrong.
For someone whose fatal flaw is pride, Annabeth Chase has done quite a lot of that.
Annabeth swallows down the lump in her throat. “I understand, Percy,” she says, and she’s trying to, because you can only eat so much poison before you start to think that it becomes a part of you. “I apologize. I’ll- I can try to be better.”
Percy looks back at her, almost surprised. “Really.”
She will. “Yes.”
“You sure.”
“Yes.” Annabeth reaches out, squeezes his hand just because she can. “It’s not fair for me to be- for me to be a shitty girlfriend when you’re… well, you know. You.”
Percy scoffs at the absurdity of her statement. “You’re not a shitty girlfriend,” he disagrees, but he doesn’t pull away- even though she should- and she’s happy about that. “And if you were, I’d be just about as bad as you are, so.”
“Not true.”
“Might be true.”
Percy gives her a wry smile. “There are worse people to date.”
“You make it sound like we are.”
Looking at her with something like reverence, Percy steps closer. “I used to fall asleep every night thinking about the things you would hate me for, and I came up with so many,” he says quietly, and the confession is brutal in its honesty. “When we started dating, I kept wondering if my life was a dream or not, and I kept thinking about when it would be over, and when I would have to wake up.” He drags a rough, shaky hand through his hair. “And- and then, after everything-” and the unspoken Tartarus hangs like a whisper in the air, there- “I kept thinking about all the things different and bad and wrong about me, and I-”
His voice breaks. Annabeth opens her mouth, but Percy just shakes his head.
“After all of that, Beth,” he whispers, “I couldn’t find a single reason to think that you’d stay.”
She is never going to leave him. “Percy-”
“It’s stupid, I know,” he cuts in, his laugh sad and sweet. “But sometimes I feel like if you didn’t want me, no one else ever would.”
Silence on the water. The ocean says not a word.
Slowly, Annabeth lets him go, slides her hands up unger his arms, and pulls him down to her. Percy lets that happen- welcomes it, almost- and, burying his face into her neck, he hugs her back.
“It’s not stupid,” she tells him, and it’s the millionth time she’s said this after nearly a decade of trying to make him understand that there was nothing wrong with him, regardless of what his brain believed, but the most important part of loving is letting someone know how well they’re seen, and showing them how much you care. “And neither are you.”
Blue-tipped fingernails claw at her back, twist into her shirt; Percy’s calm, but the ocean buzzes beneath their feet and further out, the waves rise an inch or two. The ocean says nothing, and neither does Percy, but that’s enough.
“I love you, Percy,” Annabeth whispers, and those are not words that come easily, considering, but she’ll say it every day for the rest of their lives because she has to, because it’s true. “I really, really do.”
At some point, Percy must have looked at her again. His eyes must have been red from crying- even though he’d never admit it because he’s just Like That, and he must have been pouting in that way he did, pink lips pressed into a scowl that was clearly fake, clearly a cover-up. Percy is only twenty and cries like he’s twelve, because there are eight years of sorrow he chooses to bury under all that confidence and attitude and this was an age he never thought he’d live to or past, and if he has the right to be sad, Annabeth has the right to be sorry.
She must have smiled at him- a small little thing, a sliver of a shadow of a too-large grin. Something genuine- a moonlit pearl in the middle of the ocean.
Percy must have seen it. Percy must have kissed her. Annabeth must have laughed when she realized that that was his plan all along, but hey- after everything, who was she to complain, huh?