Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Annabeth’s arm hangs over the edge of the top bunk. She wiggles her fingers until Percy gets the message and grabs onto her hand.

Her conversation with Grover weighs heavily on her mind, but she isn’t sure how to talk to Percy about it yet. Still, she wants to try. She knows she has to try.

“Thank you for this,” she finally says into the darkness of the room. She doesn’t bother specifying what she’s thanking him for. “This has been the best time I’ve ever had in San Francisco.”

Percy’s thumb drags over her knuckles. “Better than our road trip?”

Annabeth snorts into her pillow. “Yeah. Close thing, though.”

“Mm. We got away with a lot.”

“Not like there weren’t consequences.”

Percy misunderstands her. “You still ended up coming to New York,” he says.

The truth falls out of her as if commanded by gravity. “And I can never call this place home because of it.”

He’s quiet for a minute, though his hand is still gentle in her own. “Is that why?”

“I think it’s part of it. Most of it.”

“Was Richmond home?”

Annabeth’s arm is going numb. She doesn’t move. She could make a joke—so much of her jumps at the chance to, to divert the tense quality of the air around her, to say something like well I still say y’all sometimes —but she resists the urge. “It definitely was, once. Not for long.”

“Camp?”

“A little after. It was better, after my first summer away, but that didn’t last. The twins got older. I did too. We all outgrew Richmond, I think.” She breathes in, and out, and in again. “It wasn’t home when we moved.” 

“Did that make it easier?”

Annabeth sighs. “Maybe? I don’t think so.” She squeezes Percy’s fingers. “I think I resented San Francisco for not becoming my home the way Richmond once was.”

Percy squeezes back. “And New York?” His voice is unsure.

Annabeth closes her eyes. “Percy,” she says, his name an admonishment. “You know Sally’s apartment is…you know.”

He clears his throat. “Okay.”

She squeezes harder. “You believe me?”

“Mhm.”

“Good.” She lets him sit with that, hears his shaky breaths even out, and then speaks again. “I mean it. Thank you for this.”

His voice is light. “I promise you, Ivy League, it’s literally no problem. You’re my best friend.”

A terrible, jealous part of her, one that she’s gotten infinitely better at tamping down as she’s gotten older, sneaks out from somewhere hidden. “Not Grover?”

“It’s different, you know that.”

“Yeah?”

“Duh.”

Annabeth hides her smile in her pillow. Warmth trickles down through her chest until the nasty creature that lives in her stomach crawls back to whatever hole it makes its home. She tries to speak again, but her mouth doesn’t move. 

What if you ruin it, the creature whispers from its hiding place. What if it’s not the right time?

“Annabeth?”

“Mhm?”

“My arm is going numb.”

Annabeth laughs and lets him go. His hand stays clenched around hers for one moment longer, and then drops away.

//

Something Annabeth doesn’t realize until she’s brushing her teeth on her 20th birthday is that no one tells you when you stop being a child. No one shakes your hand or congratulates you for navigating your way into adulthood in a piece that is still—mostly—whole. It isn’t marked by the ability to vote or drink alcohol or rent a car without any additional fees.

It’s something quieter. It’s something that happens on the inside and bleeds out until you’re left with toothpaste on your chin, wondering how many miles back you crossed the finish line.

When did she start being an adult? All she knows is that it was a long time ago. 

Annabeth brushes the backs of her molars carefully. She doesn’t think she’s been a child for a very, very long time.

//

December 30th starts quietly, with Annabeth alone in the kitchen. She woke up early after a restless night of sleep, and snuck out of the room with only one or two lingering glances towards a lightly snoring Percy.

She turns on the kitchen light and brews some coffee. There’s a text from Thalia that’s just a picture of a golden eagle taken suspiciously close, and she’s too tired to respond with anything other than the ‘!!’ iMessage react. 

It’s her last day of peace before huge swaths of Elaine’s family will arrive and make her feel like a delinquent loser who will never outgrow her teenage self. She intends to savor it.

Elaine has other plans.

She bustles into the kitchen wearing her favorite red scrubs, her footsteps faltering when she realizes she’s not alone.

“I didn’t realize anyone else was up,” she says. “I’ve got to head into work.” 

They haven’t talked beyond some terse good mornings and will you pass the salt since their fight three nights ago. For all that Elaine loves to complain about her husband’s stuffy, WASP attitude, she’s just as good at burying things and pretending they never happened.

“Cavity emergency?” Annabeth asks.

Her step-mom rubs a hand over her forehead, sighing deeply as she fills up her travel mug with the freshly brewed coffee. “Try five. We’re technically closed, but both Cassie and I are free today, and we’ve had parents calling nonstop, so…” She raises her mug and shakes it a little. “Thanks for making the coffee, sweetheart. You and Percy have plans?”

This is Annabeth’s favorite Elaine, the one just a little too busy to look critically at whatever she’s doing or not doing. With this Elaine, every small offer of help is thanked effusively. For this Elaine, Annabeth can sometimes pretend to be a perfect daughter.

“I don’t think so,” she says, pouring her own coffee once Elaine’s done. “The twins will want more skateboarding tips, I’m sure. I’m probably going to try and guilt myself into getting a head start on some readings.”

Elaine is nodding along as she looks down at her phone, reaching out an absentminded hand to stroke along Annabeth’s shoulder. “You know, if you think Percy will be alright on his own,” Elaine says, sending a text as she talks, “our receptionist can’t make it in. You could do your reading at the desk? You’d just be checking a few families in, nothing major.”

Her step-mom’s hand rests on her shoulder blade. Annabeth thinks it maybe feels a little something like an apology. 

“Sure,” Annabeth finds herself saying. “Are you going now?”

“Mmm.”

“I’ll go change?” She’s still wearing sweatpants.

“If you want, but you’ll be behind the desk.”

Annabeth steps away from her touch anyway, needing the brief reprieve of going upstairs to get her head screwed back on. “I’ll be quick,” she says.

“Thanks again,” Elaine calls out after her, voice a little lowered so as to not wake anyone up.

Annabeth hustles up the stairs and into her room, shucking off her sweatpants for jeans practically before she makes it through the door. “Percy,” she hisses. “Hey, wake up for a sec.”

“Whazzt,” he mumbles, one hand coming out from under the covers and flopping over the side of the mattress. “M’up.”

“I’m helping Elaine out at work today, alright? You’ll be good by yourself?” Annabeth asks, coming over to shake his shoulder a bit.

Percy squints one eyelid open, looking marginally more awake. He’s quiet for a moment, and then both of his eyes open wide. “Thighs,” he says.

Annabeth laughs. “What?”

“You’re—pants.”

“I’m pants?”

“You’re not wearing pants.”

“Oh.” Annabeth shakes out the jeans in her hands and starts putting them on. “Yeah, sorry. You’ll be good hanging with the twins?”

Percy flops back onto his pillow, eyes firmly shut. “Yep.”

“Sure?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Go back to sleep.”

Percy just grunts. Annabeth shoves her laptop into her backpack and backs out of her room, closing the door with a muted click. Then she’s down the stairs, slipping her shoes on, and sitting in the passenger seat of her step-mom’s car in what feels like one big breath. NPR mumbles too low for either of them to hear as Elaine drives them to the dentist’s office that Annabeth herself has only been to twice. 

“Did you end up getting that wisdom teeth consult?” Elaine asks.

“Yeah,” Annabeth answers. “Dr. Benson said they look fine.”

“Unsurprising,” Elaine says with a shake of her head. “Your teeth were always weirdly perfect. I thought about sending your x-rays to VCU to use to teach.”

“Really?” Annabeth thinks back to the first time Elaine had lifted her into the too-big dentist chair back in Richmond. “I thought that was just, you know, you getting me to relax. To like you, and stuff.”

Elaine spares a quick glance her way before she puts her eyes back on the road. “No, sweetheart, you were just a marvel of pediatric dentistry.” She takes a swing from her travel mug. “Did it work?”

“What?”

“Did it make you like me? Your father always says you were scared of dentists before me.”

“I don’t remember that,” Annabeth admits, “so I guess.”

“I don’t know if I ever told you this,” Elaine says, her voice still so suspiciously casual, “but you were such a huge part of why I fell in love with your father.”

Annabeth searches for numbness or weakness in her limbs, but finds none. It appears as though she is not having a stroke. “Me?” she asks.

Her step-mom hums. “You were so exceptionally bright. I know you know that, but it was striking. It seemed impossible not to fall in love with the two of you. I mean, I saw this single father who got his PhD while raising you, with practically no help, and you turned out so brilliant. So curious about everything. You asked me all about how x-rays worked and listened so carefully to my explanation; I don’t know if you remember that. It was hard not to love someone who raised such a beautiful little girl.”

Annabeth must be having a fucking stroke. “Oh,” she says.

The rest of the drive is quiet. Annabeth picks at a steadily growing hole in the knee of her jeans until Elaine arrives at her reserved parking spot.

The office has changed since Annabeth was there last. That’s unsurprising, since she’s pretty sure it was upwards of five years ago, but the bright green of the walls is jarring. 

“Cassie’s already in,” Elaine says, gesturing to a jacket hanging from one of the hooks behind the receptionist’s desk. “I’ll join her in the back and have you text me when someone checks in. They’re all usual patients, so we have their insurance and everything sorted; just take a record of the names and time?”

Annabeth nods, setting up her laptop at the desk. “You’re expecting five?”

Elaine nods, shucking her own jacket off. “The Randall’s will ask you a lot of questions, but you don’t have to answer. They’re just worriers. All set?”

“Yep.” Annabeth opens her laptop. “Oh, actually?” 

Elaine peeks her head back around the door she’d just vanished through.

“The Wi-Fi password?”

“Freddybobbymatthew, only capital F, all one word. Happy studying!”

Annabeth stares at the empty doorway as Elaine’s shoes pad down the hall. A strange kind of hysteria overtakes her as she types the password in, giggling as it connects and she pulls up her texts to send a message to Percy.

We have soooooo much to talk about when I get back, she texts him. I’ve been here maybe 2mins and it’s already hogfucking wild. text me when you wake up

The rest of the day stretches and zooms by in strange intervals that Annabeth can’t quite tune into. She doesn’t get her reading done, even though she scrolls through the first twenty pages of one of her PDFs at least a dozen times. The Randall’s show up, two anxious parents and one silent six year-old, and they do indeed ask way too many questions that Annabeth has no idea how to answer, but it’s otherwise fine. She doesn’t really need to be here.

She doesn’t know why Elaine asked her to come. She doesn’t know why she said yes.

Her computer dings. Percy’s text says ok so obviously tell me everything right now.

Annabeth spends the rest of the morning texting him and pretending to do her reading. Elaine and her dental assistant work quickly, and by the time Annabeth is starting to get hungry for lunch, her step-mom wanders back out into the waiting room again. 

“All done?” Annabeth asks. The fifth family had been on their way almost ten minutes before, with Cassie following soon after.

“Finally,” Elaine groans. “You wouldn’t believe the cavity one of those kids had. It was something out of a horror movie.”

Annabeth resists the urge to say fascinating in her most sarcastic tone of voice. “Well, I’m starving,” she goes for instead. “Let’s head back. I’m sure Dad has had Percy and the twins doing party prep without us.”

“Maybe we should stay, then,” Elaine jokes.

Annabeth pauses zipping up her backpack. Her step-mom doesn’t usually joke with her—doesn’t ever joke with her, really. “Right,” she says weakly. 

Are we friends now? she wants to ask. Or is this still some part of an elaborate apology? Am I an adult now that you think I’m dating someone, and so you can occasionally talk to me without disdain or disapproval? Is that what this means to you?

They walk to the car in awkward, stilted silence. Annabeth certainly doesn’t know what to say. 

“Thank you for coming in with me,” Elaine eventually says over the soft voices on NPR. “It was nice to spend time together, just us.”

The most time they spent together was in the car, but Annabeth doesn’t point that out. This Elaine, with her tired smile and relaxed shoulders, is an Elaine Annabeth doesn’t know how to deal with. She’s a piece of a puzzle Annabeth can’t figure out. She wants to scream, or cry, or sleep for a week. Where was this Elaine three days ago? She wants to know why this Elaine only shows up once Annabeth is convinced that she imagined her last appearance. 

If her step-mom can be like this, why hasn’t she been? If her step-mom is like this, has Annabeth just been a moody, asshole kid for her whole life, overreacting to the tiniest barbs? There’s always just enough proof that Elaine loves her, thrown in Annabeth’s face, burning in her eyes like a handful of sand.

It gives her a headache. Elaine gives her a headache. San Francisco does, maybe the whole west coast. 

She wants to go home.

“You’re welcome,” Annabeth says.

Why do I only get this version of you now? she doesn’t ask. Where have you been my entire fucking life? 

She asks none of it. Silently, she reaches for the volume and turns up NPR.

//

“Annabeth!” 

Annabeth looks up from Bobby’s NintendoDS. She’s tantalizingly close to leveling up his Archen into Archeops. “What?” She yells back.

Her step-mom’s voice comes from somewhere a little closer this time, maybe the bottom of the steps. “Someone’s at the door for you.”

That makes Annabeth pause, both in life and in the game. Bobby whines from where he’s watching over her shoulder, but he breaks into giggles when she pinches his nose. “I think you’ve got it from here,” she tells him. “Go nuts.”

She has absolutely no idea who could be at the door. She knows maybe two people in San Francisco that aren’t her family, and they both work at the bookstore she’s taken to spending afternoons in. Her brain whirrs over the possibilities as she thumps down the steps and then comes to an abrupt halt when a head of messy black hair comes into sight.

“Percy?” Annabeth gapes. 

He makes eye contact over her step-mom’s shoulder and breaks into a grin. One of his hands comes up to give her a little wave. “Hey.”

Annabeth nearly bowls him over with the force of her hug. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in town—thought I’d stop by,” Percy says, which is totally a lie. He tilts his head so that his mouth is right by her ear and whispers, “this is a jailbreak, dude. I’m busting you out.”

Annabeth grins into his shoulder. She doesn’t know why she would even bother to get to know people in San Francisco when she could just keep knowing Percy instead. 

//

Her dad realizes that it’s their last chance to have a calm dinner with just the six of them before the chaos of the New Year, and ushers them all to the dining room for another stiltedly formal experience. Annabeth expects the twins to complain, since she’s feeling the urge to herself, but they’re strangely—very strangely—cool with it. They keep glancing at each other and then at their dad and Annabeth thinks she might be finally getting four out of two and two. 

She doesn’t want to have another serious talk with her father this trip, but the best laid plans, or something like that. Annabeth’s trying to figure out how she’s going to go about that with such focus that it takes her dad three times to get her attention, finally aided by Percy putting a gentle hand on her elbow. 

“What?” Her family’s staring at her. “Sorry, I was—what did you say?”

“How was the office? Your mom said you were a big help.”

“Oh, I just signed some people in,” Annabeth says, shrugging. “No big.”

“And she actually got some work done,” Elaine adds.

Percy’s hand abruptly leaves her elbow, as though burned. “You know,” he says, his voice strangely cheerful, “I’ve had a dentist question for a while now, Mrs. Dr. Chase.”

Matthew groans. Elaine perks up. “I’d be happy to help,” she says. 

“Toothpaste,” Percy begins, gesturing with his fork. “Where’s the diversity of flavor? Like, all the adult toothpastes are mint. What happens to all the bubblegum lovers?” Percy says it with a smile, but there’s something a little sharp in his gaze. 

“Well, it has more to do with what companies believe about consumers than it does the toothpaste,” she says. “Bubblegum has the connotation of childishness, if only because children often prefer something sweet where adults might not.” 

“Loads of adults don’t like mint.”

Annabeth puts her fork down and tries to make eye contact with Percy, but he avoids her gaze. What are you doing? she wants to ask, recognizing the determined expression he’s got on.

Elaine shrugs. “It’s not as though toothpaste designed for children doesn’t do the job. It’s made of the same material, more or less. Adults can learn to suck it up.” She thinks for a second, then clarifies. “That’s different than toddler’s training toothpaste, of course. Entirely different contents for that.”

“Of course,” Bobby says, because he can get away with saying stuff like that. “Duh. We all were thinking that.”

Annabeth’s step-mom sighs, but a smile plays around her lips. “Yes, I’m terribly boring, I know. Your life is very hard.”

“Hey, you said it, not me!” Bobby laughs and gets only a fond look of exasperation for it. At least until Elaine reaches out a hand and absentmindedly tucks a stray piece of his hair out of eyes.

Annabeth goes a little cold all over. The food in her mouth loses its flavor. 

Percy gets up very suddenly. “Excuse me,” he says, kurt but polite. Without another word he stalks out of the room.

Annabeth watches him go out onto the porch through the window. Everyone at the table looks at Annabeth, but she doesn’t pay them any mind as she goes after him.

It’s cold out; Percy doesn’t seem to notice. He’s facing away from her, both hands on the railing of the porch, his head hanging low. “Percy?”

He only grunts in response. 

Worry spikes in Annabeth’s gut. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry.” Percy turns to face her more fully, and it strikes Annabeth that his smile is more than a little forced, that his shoulders are tense. “I’m fine. You can go back in.”

“Percy,” Annabeth says again, reproachful this time. He’s clearly not fine. 

“I’m sorry,” he bursts out again. “I’m not running, I’m not scared, that’s not—I just can’t sit there and pretend—I’m sorry, I know this isn’t why I’m here.”

“Percy.” Annabeth steps forward and grabs onto his hands and wonders if they’ll ever get out from beneath the words they’ve thrown at each other in the past. “It’s alright. You don’t have to apologize, just...what’s going on?”

“I hate them,” he confesses, his eyes big and guilty. “I know I’m supposed to be all charming and perfect boyfriend material right now, but God Annabeth, I really fucking hate your family.”

Annabeth blinks a few times before she can find any words. Even then, all she can muster up is, “what?”

“I’m trying to do what I said I would,” Percy continues. “Seriously, I can do it, I just need a minute, alright? To cool down.”

“I need you to explain in different words,” Annabeth says, squeezing his hands with a force that’s probably far too great. 

Percy exhales a giant breath. “Annabeth. You’ve been my best friend for almost ten years. Do you seriously not know why I hate everyone in there? Well, not your brothers, I guess.”

“But,” Annabeth interjects a bit lamely, “you always…you’ve never said!”

“Well, it’s not my family!” Percy looks uncomfortable, but doesn’t pull away. “It’s yours. Yours to set limits with, and decide how to interact with, and the last time you asked my opinion was, like, nine years ago, and I totally fucked up.”

Annabeth finally lets go of his hands. She takes a halting step back and then sits down on the porch bench, hard. “What are you talking about?”

Percy shifts his weight and then comes and sits next to her, his thigh pressed against hers. “That first summer I was at Camp,” he says, “before I understood, you asked me what I would do. After you got that letter from your dad.”

Annabeth remembers it all at once, like Percy’s offered her the key to a long locked door. It had been July, a week or two after her birthday. The letter had been short, but it had been written entirely in her father’s handwriting, for once. 

“I didn’t know,” Percy says. “All I knew was that I missed my mom and that I had spent kind of my whole life wanting a dad who cared enough to send me a letter at camp. I didn’t understand, but I answered like I did. And you never asked again.”

Annabeth hadn’t known, either, the intricacies of asking Percy anything to do with mothers and fathers that summer he turned twelve. Her question had come with selfishness, and frustration, and a hope so deep she didn’t know where it ended and she began. 

“And if you had,” Percy says quietly, “asked again, that is…I probably would’ve been less generous. Once I knew you better.”

Annabeth reaches out and grabs Percy’s knee. “Why?”

Percy gnaws at his lip. “Every time you came back from being here,” he tells her, “you were just the tiniest bit smaller. It never lasted long, but once I saw it…” He shrugs. 

“Smaller,” Annabeth repeats, her hand still on his knee. “What does that mean?”

“You were quiet, and zoned out a lot. You didn’t laugh as easy, or joke as much. It sucked so bad to think I ever encouraged you to go somewhere that made you feel like that.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Annabeth says, her brain scrambling for evidence to support her claim and coming up blank. 

Percy’s leg tenses under her fingertips. “Okay.” He covers her hand with his own. “What was it like?”

“They love me,” she says instead of answering. She knows that it’s true; she believes it.

“Annabeth,” Percy murmurs. 

“They do,” she insists.

“You deserve a better love than that.”

Annabeth digs the nails of her free hand into her palm, but the tears burn in her eyes anyway. “You…asked about toothpaste,” she says, still struggling to understand. “Why have you been…”

“You said you wanted boyfriend material!” Percy protests. “You wanted someone to schmooze old ladies, who your step-mom liked! I can’t do that if I’m—” He gestures to himself. “—like this. Pissed off. Two seconds from throwing a plate against a wall. Your step-mom’s plates look fancy.”

“They are,” she says a little numbly. “I’m going to, um. Go back in. You…take your time, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes big and apologetic.

“Don’t apologize.” She pats his knee one last time and gets up. “Take as much time as you need.”

She doesn’t say much for the rest of dinner. She’s too busy thinking.

//

“I’ve never been to a wedding before,” Percy says, palms only a little sweaty where he leads them in a minorly awkward slow dance, “but this has been sick.”

“You’re only saying that because of the unlimited blue cupcakes.”

“Um, yes. I was never hiding that?”

Annabeth rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her face. “I was a flower girl at my dad’s,” she tells him, “but I barely remember it. Plus, there was a babysitter to take me away right after.” She holds her arm up and Percy obediently twirls under it, shimmying his shoulders to make her laugh. “I like this one much better. Their vows were cute.”

“I was so scared I was gonna trip on mom’s dress going down the aisle, you don’t even know,” Percy confesses. “My hands are still sweaty.”

“I know,” Annabeth deadpans, looking at their loosely clasped hands. 

He winces, pulling away to wipe his palm on his pants before taking her hand again. “My bad.”

“You’re fine.” She clears her throat. “No one’s ever really danced with me like this before.”

“Really?” Percy sounds like he legitimately finds that hard to believe. “Damn, and you’re stuck with me? Shit luck.”

She steps on his foot. They’re both barefoot in the sand, so it doesn’t do much. “I’m trying to say thank you, Seaweed Brain.”

His head tilts to the side, like an honest to God puppy. “I mean, you’re also dancing with me. I would be sitting alone eating my twelfth cupcake if it weren’t for you. All of the wedding pictures would be super embarrassing.”

Annabeth leans in as much as she dares. “I think your mom paid the photographer extra to get shots of the two of us.”

He snorts. “You think?”

The song changes into something similarly gentle and slow, this time with a low, smooth voice singing in Spanish. Percy smiles as the opening lines are sung, adjusting his grip at its respectful height on Annabeth’s back. 

“Mom used to sing this one to me,” he says. 

“It’s pretty.”

“I always thought so.”

Percy leads them through the first verse with a little more attention than he’d been paying before, all careful steps and guiding hands. Annabeth would be surprised if she hadn’t been his practice dummy for the last three months as he stressed over wanting to be able to dance with his mom at her wedding. The focus in his movements and the little furrow between his brows make the words that have been bubbling up in Annabeth’s chest all day finally come out. 

“You look really beautiful,” she says. His tie is a perfect green, and his suit fits his shoulders just right. The haircut he got last week even makes his hair look purposefully, dashingly disheveled, even though Annabeth knows there’s nothing purposeful about it. 

Percy turns a bright, flaming red. “I—you. That’s…thank you? Thanks. Um.”

Annabeth laughs. “You’re welcome, Percy.” She steps in, stopping their dance, and hugs him. 

“No one’s ever called me beautiful before,” he says over her shoulder. 

Annabeth smiles wide where she knows he can’t see her. “Well, I’ve never seen you in a suit before.” From their hug, Annabeth shifts her weight from one foot to the other, starting them in a gentle sway. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the wedding photographer’s light flash. 

//

Annabeth dreams that she’s standing on the ocean floor. When she looks to the side, Percy is right there next to her, holding her hand.

A massive, prehistoric shark swims in front of them. Annabeth isn’t scared; it moves right past peacefully, as beautiful as it is large. 

“I knew it,” Dream Percy says. “Megalodon has been waiting for us this whole time.”

“You’re so dumb,” Annabeth says to him. “Why am I obsessed with you, Aquaman?”

“Because I can take you to the bottom of the ocean.” He points off into the distance, and through the bouncing haze of water Annabeth can see some kind of spire. “I haven’t even shown you Atlantis, yet.”

“It can wait,” Annabeth says, still staring at him. The ocean around them is painted with the same color palette as Percy’s eyes. 

“Okay,” Dream Percy says. “I’ll wait with you.”

Annabeth opens her eyes and sees the ceiling only a few feet from her face. There’s a faint, sleepy sound from the bunk below her. 

“Are you awake?” She asks.

“No,” Percy answers.

“I dreamed we were on the bottom of the ocean,” Annabeth says, ignoring him. “We saw Atlantis.”

“Mm.” The covers rustle, and then there’s the tick-tacking of Percy’s phone keyboard, since he never puts his phone on silent. “Was Megalodon there?”

Annabeth rubs the sleep out of the corners of her eyes. “No,” she lies.

“Lame. Come hang out in my dreams, it’s a way better time. We backpacked through hell, once.”

“Was Blackjack the talking horse there?”

The mattress under her hips gets pushed up by Percy’s feet, the bed frame creaking as he jostles her around from below. “I told you that in confidence.”

“You’re insane if you think I’d ever let you live down being a horse girl.”

The mattress drops back down. “Why did Grover text me a bunch of pictures of drawbridges?”

Annabeth groans.

Percy’s phone makes a swooping noise. “And portcullises,” he adds.

“You know what a portcullis is?” Annabeth asks, rolling over so that she can lean over the edge of the bunk.

Percy gives her a look. The hair on the right side of his head is sticking out perpendicularly from his skull. “Annabeth. I was bound to learn some things over nine years.”

He looks cozy in his old Montauk t-shirt, with his bedhead going crazy. Annabeth wants to do something dangerous or insane, like cuddle him. “Right,” she says, more than a little awkwardly. “I’m gonna shower.”

Percy’s already frowning at his phone again, tapping out a message that Annabeth hopes will make Grover chill out by even 4%. “Have fun,” he says. “Shout if there’s a spider and I will fell the foul beast with my sword.” By which he means his flip-flop, of course.

Annabeth shudders on her way down the ladder. “As long as you don’t miss like last time, fair maiden.”

“Hey, you’re the one who’s been sleeping in a tower,” Percy complains, pointing at the top bunk. “I should get to be the knight this time.”

“Kill a spider and we’ll see,” Annabeth offers, grabbing a change of clothes. “Don’t go downstairs without me unless you want to get roped into moving heavy shit around by Elaine.”

“Suddenly I’m asleep.” Percy lets out a loud, unbelievable snore. 

Annabeth giggles her way to the shower. She tugs back the curtain and gazes carefully over each surface for little black specks of movement. Only once she deems it safe does she step inside.

//

Annabeth’s first impression of Elaine’s cousin Rose is that she has eyes that would be better suited for a bird of prey than a human woman. Her eyebrows seem perpetually pinched together, and the frown lines around her mouth are a stark contrast to the unnaturally smooth, stretched planes of skin over her cheeks and forehead. She smells of cloying perfume, the scent of it strong enough that Annabeth is nearly knocked flat from six feet away.

Most adults are boring. The endless parade of adults from Elaine’s family are even more boring, all concerned with cooing over the baby twins and asking about how Elaine is doing and other boring stuff. Annabeth, picking at a scab on her elbow and still not understanding why she can’t go back outside, is fully prepared for Rose to be just as boring as all of the anonymous people before her.

That is, until: “Is this the one that keeps running away?”

Annabeth’s head snaps up to meet suspicious, accusatory eyes.

“That’s Annabeth,” Elaine says. The bags under her eyes are deep, and her customary streak of red hair has all but faded entirely. “Come say hi, Beth.”

“Don’t call me that,” Annabeth says. “It’s not my name.”

Rose looks like she might want to raise her eyebrows at that, but they stay stiff and frozen on her forehead. “And her mother?”

Annabeth’s twitching fingers go still. Her eyes bounce between the two women like they’re a tennis match.

“Not in the picture,” Elaine eventually settles on saying. 

Rose makes a little hum of understanding. “Well, you’ve got this wonderful mom now, don’t you, Beth?”

“My name’s not Beth,” Annabeth says again, “and she’s not my mom.”

Rose scowls down at her. “That’s not very nice.” Her tone drowns in condescension. 

“But it’s true.” Annabeth crosses her arms. She doesn’t look at her step-mom. “Am I supposed to lie?”

“Your father never taught you to be polite?”

“Is that what you do?” Annabeth asks. “Lie, and tell yourself it’s okay because you’re being polite?” 

Rose reaches whatever line in the sand she views as a step too far. “You’ll never amount to anything with that attitude, you insolent little girl,” she tells Annabeth.

“At least I’m not a wrinkly old bat,” Annabeth says, “hiding it with bad plastic surgery.”

“Annabeth Chase!” Her step-mom interrupts. She points up the stairs. “Room, right now.”

Annabeth goes to her room. She convinces herself that that’s where she wanted to be, anyway.

//

A distressed looking Bobby appears in the kitchen only moments after Percy and Annabeth have located the mini cupcakes Elaine is going to serve later that night. Whatever he’s upset about is distracting enough that he doesn’t seem to notice their puffed out cheeks, or the frosting smeared across Percy’s lip. 

“Rose is coming for lunch,” he says, throwing himself down onto one of the counter stools. 

Annabeth, who’s given up on gesturing towards her own face in hopes that Percy would get the hint, just reaches out and rubs a thumb over his mouth. Bobby’s words hit her once she’s got frosting on her fingers, and they strike enough terror through her that her hand spasms and she ends up making a mess of Percy’s face all over again.

“It’s already two o’clock,” Annabeth protests.

Bobby groans against the counter. “You know it’s just an excuse to boss us around for five hours. Does Mom need another grocery store run or something? I could do that.”

“Fat chance,” Annabeth says. “You can’t drive.”

“Can too!”

“She’s, like, the worst one, right?” Percy asks. 

“Uh, by a mile,” Bobby says. “She’s always asking me and Matthew what our SAT scores are. Like, she started two years ago! We weren’t even in high school!”

Annabeth literally bites her tongue to keep from mentioning how she also sends Bobby and Matthew extravagant birthday checks and talks about what handsome young men they are. “At least she could always tell you apart,” Annabeth says instead. “Caroline still mixes you up.”

Bobby grins at her. “Aunt Caro also thinks it’s your fault whenever we misbehave, so I’ll give her a pass. I can do no wrong.”

He’s just joking around, Annabeth reminds herself. He’s fifteen. He’s fifteen. “Just leave Amelia alone this year, alright? She gets whiny.”

“Yeah, whatever. Think I can hide until the party starts?”

“No,” Annabeth says casually, smiling at him. “Since I’ll rat you out as soon as I can.”

Bobby grimaces. “Ugh.” He looks at Percy. “Sisters are the worst, dude.”

“Hey, don’t bring me into this,” Percy says, holding up his hands. “My sister rocks. She’s going to be a lumberjack.”

Annabeth laughs at her brother’s confused expression. “Go find Matthew,” she tells him. “Rose always liked him best.”

“Righto, stinker.”

Annabeth braces her hands on the counter and squeezes her eyes shut once he leaves the kitchen. Her plan is either going to work or fall apart, and she’s probably going to know within moments of seeing Rose. Either Elaine’s cousin will be charmed by Percy and leave Annabeth be, or she’ll throw him into the same box she’s always put Annabeth in, and that’s fine. It’s fine because she can’t control what other people think about her. She can just do her best and hope they see it. God, who is she fucking kidding?

She feels Percy lean next to her. “All good?”

“This family makes my brain crazy,” she mutters.

“Are you sure that isn’t just your regular brain?” he asks out of the corner of his mouth.

Annabeth resists the urge to step on his toes. Instead, she opens her eyes so she can grab onto his hand. “Shut up. I’m kidding. I love you, you’re the best for doing this. Do you think I can get away with hiding?”

Percy inches closer so that his arm is pressed up against hers and squeezes her hand. “Oh, your brain really is going nuts,” he says.

“Will we look weird if we wait by the door for her? To get it over with? Should we sit and pretend to be reading books?”

“Breathe,” he tells her.

Annabeth breathes. Outside, she hears the car door slam. Upstairs, she hears the heavy footfalls of her brothers, slow and miserable sounding. They meet up at the bottom of the stairs, the three siblings wincing at each other’s drawn expressions. 

“First one to get belittled gets $5,” Bobby says. 

“No cheating,” Matthew butts in. “Has to come up naturally.”

Annabeth cackles. “Deal.”

Elaine comes around the corner to open the door, shooting suspicious looks their way. Shit, maybe they do look weird all standing in the front hallway, waiting for their impending doom. The door opens before she can do anything about it

“God, she looks the same,” Matthew mutters from one side of her. 

“She must be putting her plastic surgeon’s kids through college,” Bobby interjects from the other. “She never ages a day.”

“That’s because demons don’t age,” Annabeth says under her breath. 

Bobby and Matthew both stifle laughs. Elaine turns and, seeing Annabeth in the middle of them with an even expression, glares at her specifically. Annabeth resists the impulse to say something like they started it— she’s not fourteen anymore. 

“And there are my boys,” Rose says, bustling around Elaine and grabbing Bobby and Matthew up into a miserable hug. “Oh, you’ve both grown so much since Thanksgiving.”

“Hi, Aunt Rose,” Matthew says dutifully. Bobby is wincing over her shoulder where she can’t see, but one sharp look from his mom has him smiling brightly. 

“And Beth is here this year,” Rose says next, turning on her. Annabeth feels distinctly like she’s bleeding in the water with Bruce from Finding Nemo. “I thought you would’ve found a reason to run back to New York before today.”

Annabeth gives her most Oscar worthy smile, catching Elaine’s pleading expression by the doorway. “Hi. This is my boyfriend, Percy. Percy, this is Rose.”

Percy, who’s moved to stand by her side, sticks his hand forward with the affable expression he usually used to try and charm his teachers in high school. “Nice to meet you,” he says.

Annabeth can tell he’s lying by the way his ears go a little pink, but Rose is fooled. “A boyfriend,” she stresses, shaking Percy’s hand. “That’s unexpected.”

“I thought I mentioned that Annabeth was bringing someone,” Elaine chimes in, fixing the tag on the back of Matthew’s collar as she passes him. 

“Oh, you did,” Rose says, still sizing Percy up. “I just figured it would fall through.”

Percy slings an arm around Annabeth’s shoulders. “Nope,” he says cheerfully. “We’re in it for the long haul, I’m afraid. She’s very stuck with me.”

Rose’s spine straightens haughtily. Annabeth braces for the worst. “And you say that knowing—”

“—her rigorous academic schedule?” Percy interrupts, still smiling happily. “Don’t worry, she’s a whiz at time management. You don’t make the Dean’s List at Columbia without that.”

Annabeth’s smile is wider now, more genuine. The twins look positively gleeful, but Elaine’s rigid mouth makes it clear that she sees the potential powder keg sitting in the front hall of her meticulously banal home. 

Rose isn’t so easily deterred. “I was thinking more about her high school…activities,” she says. Annabeth is sure she’d be making a nasty expression if she could move the muscles in her face at all.

“Making All-American Track and Field?” Percy asks with perfect innocence. “Or being the valedictorian?”

“Have you eaten?” Elaine interrupts. “I’ve got some barbeque chicken left over from earlier.”

“That would be delightful,” Rose says. 

Annabeth’s speaking before she even realizes it. “Should we save some for Henry?”

Elaine glares at her as Bobby half turns away to mask the shocked smirk on his face.

“He won’t be joining us,” Rose says stiffly. “Could I trouble you for some water, ‘Laine?”

“Go right ahead,” Elaine says. She lets Rose lead the way and steps into Annabeth’s space once she’s out of hearing range. “Out of line,” she hisses.

Once she too has vanished around the corner, Matthew holds out a hand for a high five. 

“Who’s Henry?” Percy asks.

“Her husband,” Annabeth says. “He never comes.”

“Oh, nasty,” Percy chortles. “Good one, babe.”

“You really shut her down,” Annabeth says, shuffling more into his side so that he won’t move his arm from around her shoulders.

Percy just shrugs. “She rolled over easier than I thought she would.”

“Mm. I don’t usually have such a stalwart ally.”

He presses a kiss against her temple. “You do now,” he says.

//

At sixteen, Annabeth stands before her best friend and calls him a coward. You run away from things when you’re scared, she tells him, hurt and anger mixing together terribly in her gut. 

The list of things she doesn’t say by the tetherball court that early August afternoon is much longer. The words get caught up wading through the terrible swamp that the monster in her chest makes its home, and none make it past her throat. 

What are you so scared of? 

Are you running away from some one or some thing? 

Is it me?

Why are you still running away? Why are you trying to get away from me?

Annabeth stares Percy down. I stopped running away from things once I met you, she wants to say. Why isn’t it the same for you?

But Annabeth can’t manage to say any of it. The only words that pass her lips are the following:

“You’re a coward, Percy Jackson.”

//

“What do you think? Good enough for Rose to think I’m fancy?”

Annabeth turns to find Percy in the doorway leading to the bathroom, wearing a blue suit. He holds his hands out in front of him in a sort of ‘ta-da’ gesture and, well. ‘Ta-da’ is kind of right.

Percy looks good. He looks kind of criminally good, actually, with a few buttons undone on his white shirt and his shoulders filling out the suit jacket just about perfectly. It even looks like he tried to make his hair behave, and he’s smiling a little nervously, and it’s...cute. He looks cute.

And the thing about Percy looking cute is—well, the thing is, Annabeth knows, alright? She has experience in that particular field: the field of knowing that Percy Jackson looks cute and making very sure that absolutely no one can tell that she knows that. She’s been training for nearly eight years to perfect her look of neutrality when faced with his cute expressions or cute laugh or cute butt. She’s the equivalent of an Olympian, and a gold fucking medalist at that.

She’s even seen him in this suit before, God. It’s not like it’s anything new, but she’s still standing frozen, practically hearing the sound of Microsoft Windows XP starting up inside her own brain from the hard system reboot Percy Jackson in a suit seems to have inspired.

“Good,” she hears herself say. “Very dashing.”

“Should I put on a tie? I brought one. You might have to help me tie it, though.”

“No that’s—” she clears her throat, “that’s fine. Good. Perfect.”

“I also brought another shirt if the white is too formal. The green one, the one Mom says makes my eyes pop—”

“No,” Annabeth interrupts. “White looks good. Great, even.”

He grins and shoots her a thumbs up. “You look great too, by the way. Are you wearing heels?”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Annabeth answers, turning back to the mirror to finish putting her earrings on. Her dress isn’t new either, but it’s one she feels confident in, and that comes first for the Chase family’s annual New Year’s Eve party. For that same reason, she’s got her eyes on a pair of neutral gray flats.

“Bummer,” Percy says. She hears him flop down onto the bottom bunk. “It’s kinda fun when you’re taller than me again, you know?”

Annabeth gives her own reflection a look. “You have, at most, three inches on me.”

“And I used to have none! Let me think back on our golden years of delinquency in peace.”

She whirls around, her dangling earrings slapping against her jaw, and points a tube of lip gloss at him. “Absolutely no talking about delinquency tonight. I am reformed. A golden child. An Ivy League attending, competitive internship achieving, boyfriend having golden child. Capiche?”

Percy, who is indeed sprawled across the lower bunk, looks at her with wide eyes. “Loud and clear, boss. I’m following your lead.”

Annabeth takes a deep breath. She’s fine—everything will be fine. “Great,” she says. “Are you ready? We should probably head down soon.”

“Alright!” Percy jumps up, clapping his hands together. “One thing before we go, though: what am I majoring in? Business? Pre-med?”

Annabeth’s head reels back, and the look she fixes him with is utter befuddlement. “What?”

Percy blinks, his smile faltering. “Like, for your extended family and friends and stuff. When I introduce myself.”

“Uh, social work?” Annabeth asks, still looking at him like he’s got a second head. Maybe she should check to see if he has a fever. “Because that’s what you’re studying?” God, he can’t be sick now, that would be disastrous— 

“I thought you—” Percy cuts himself off, unsure. “Didn’t you want your fake boyfriend to, like, impress your impossible-to-impress family?”

“Yeah.”

Percy blinks at her. “Yeah,” he echoes, “so shouldn’t I be super impressive?”

Annabeth’s confused expression morphs into a glare as she finally understands what’s going on. “Perseus Jackson. Why did you think I asked you to come here?”

Percy takes half a step back at the new intensity he’s faced with, bumping his shoulder into the bunk bed. “Um. Arm candy?”

She rolls her eyes so hard the left one twitches. “I wanted someone to impress my family. That’s why I asked you, dummy. You’re impressive.”

He breathes quietly for a few long moments. “Oh.”

“I’m telling Sally you still have self-esteem issues.”

His eyes go wide in panic. “Annabeth, come on.”

Annabeth shakes her head, still in shock. “How would you even get away from that? The twins and Elaine know what you do already. God, that would be a fucking mess. This is why I’m the brains of the operation.”

“Hey!”

“Percy, just—” She blows out a breath and moves to him, grabbing his lapels. “Just be Percy, okay?”

His throat bobs with a hard swallow; his expression is still at least 50% unsure. “Okay.”

“Boyfriend material, remember?”

“Right.” The smile she gets is shaky, but a smile. “Boyfriend material.”

“It’s not like I’ll let you leave my side the whole night, anyway. We’re gonna rock this, Jackson.” She shakes him by the lapels a little before smoothing them down again. “We’re gonna be so fucking well adjusted everyone’s going to shit their pants.”

“Hey.” He puts a hand over her left, trapping it against his heartbeat. “I’ve got your back.”

“I know.”

He squeezes her hand. “Always. Right?”

Annabeth nods. Through the thick feeling in her throat, she manages to get out a word she can rarely stomach. “Always,” she echoes. 

“Chip and Dale.”

“Wallace and Gromit.”

“Dora and Boots.”

“Burt and Ernie.”

“Tom and Jerry.”

Annabeth wrinkles her nose. “They aren’t friends.”

“Well, neither are Burt and Ernie.”

Annabeth shoves him towards the door. “Let’s go, Seaweed Brain. You have Aunties to schmooze.”

//

Annabeth Chase knows a lot of things. If you were to write them out, the list would include but not be limited to:

The Cooper Union Foundation Building included an elevator shaft in its designs before elevators had been invented. 

No part of Greece is more than 137 kilometers from the ocean. 

Sally Jackson’s favorite song is “Mambo No. 5.”

In 1775, Patrick Henry famously declared, “give me Liberty or give me death,” in Richmond, Virginia. 

The word architecture comes from the Greek word ‘arkhitekton,’ meaning ‘chief builder.’

Percy’s eyes never look greener than they do when he’s sitting on the beach. 

The state flag of Virginia features a woman holding a spear and stepping on a man in a purple tunic lying prone. She has one boob out and a helmet that matches her chiton. 

Broken promises taste like rotten strawberries. 

The square root of 1,369 is 37.

Everyone leaves. 

//

The living room is mostly filled up with the usual guests by the time they make it downstairs. All of the furniture is gone, moved to the hallway upstairs by Percy and the twins earlier in the day, and it leaves the open floorplan between the living room and dining room looking abnormally spacious. Little card tables hold hors d’oeuvres and there’s a makeshift bar in the back corner that holds flutes of champagne and soft drinks. 

It’s the picture of Annabeth’s nightmares. Soft music pumps from Matthew’s bluetooth speaker barely audible over the sound of chatter and laughter. She shudders upon seeing Elaine’s sister-in-law Caroline chatting with Lara, the Berkeley professor’s nasty daughter. They’re probably plotting her actual murder.

“This doesn’t seem so bad,” Percy says at her shoulder, shoving two pigs in blankets in his mouth. 

“Why would you say that?” Annabeth bemoans. “Don’t you know anything about jinxes?”

He smiles sheepishly around his mouthful. “Sorry.”

Annabeth shakes her head at him, fighting a smile. “You’re trouble,” she accuses. 

“Guilty.”

“Do you mind if I drink?” She asks him. “I’m probably only going to have a glass or two of champagne.”

“Oh, go for it,” he says. “You know it’s up to you.”

Annabeth grabs onto his hand and forces eye contact. “Percy.”

Green irises, blown pupils. His eyebrows push together, then relax. “It’s okay,” he says, his voice soft. “Promise.”

“Let’s go get drinks, then.” She leads him by the hand into the fray. “I made sure we had some Cokes for you.”

“Yes.” 

It’s at the drinks table, which is really a low bookcase with a tablecloth thrown over it, where they face their first test of the evening. 

“When Elaine told me you were bringing a date I couldn’t believe it,” Elaine’s brother Rob says, appearing with his usual tired smile. “How are you, Annabeth?”

“I’m good,” she says, probably honestly for the first time in all of her years attending this party. “This is Percy.”

Percy shakes the offered hand. “Hey. Robert, right?”

“Rob’s fine,” he says. “Nice to meet you. Surviving so far?”

“Think so.” Percy settles a casual arm around Annabeth’s waist. “Annabeth and the twins spent the week preparing me pretty well.”

“Well, you’re certainly the man to meet tonight,” Rob says, snagging two flutes of champagne. “I need to run these back to my wife, but it was great to put a face to the name. Maybe we’ll chat later?” He directs the question to Annabeth, who nods him away with a bland little smile.

“That was fine,” Percy mumbles, stepping to the side to give other people access to the drinks. 

“He’s the nice one.” Annabeth takes her first sip of champagne, lets the bubbles settle on her tongue. “I’m resisting the urge to go hang out in a corner together and make fun of everyone.”

“Hey, c’mon, let’s go schmooze a little,” Percy says. “I’m ready to talk you up.”

Annabeth squints up at him. “You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?”

“Totally.”

She makes a face, takes a deep breath. “Alright, let’s go.”

Assisted by the fact that Rob was absolutely right and everyone seems to be morbidly curious to meet ‘Annabeth’s boyfriend Percy,’ they find themselves sucked into introductions and small talk the moment they step more into the center of the room.

Percy shakes hands and smiles and leans into Annabeth’s space like he’s getting paid. Annabeth finds it nearly impossible to focus on the faces that blur past, much less the boring conversations, and instead passes time slowly drinking her champagne. Is it misogynistic to let him do all of the talking? Is she a bad feminist? Annabeth shakes her head and tries to tune into the conversation happening around her.

Percy is gesturing with the hand holding his drink, the other resting in the safe-zone between Annabeth’s shoulder blades. “I’ve never seen a college student with a planner like hers. It’s completely color coded, and she blocks out time to work on projects, like, weeks before they’re due. I’d think she was an alien if I hadn’t seen first hand how brilliant she is.”

“Percy,” Annabeth mutters, feeling her face flush. The current circle of Elaine’s extended family around them look between Annabeth and her supposed boyfriend in shock.

“What? It’s true,” he insists. “I went to this, ah, end of semester lunch thing last year and met some of her professors…” He shakes his head, laughing. “One of them straight up said she was the most brilliant mind he’d ever had the pleasure of teaching. And he teaches at Columbia.”

“I’m glad she managed to get on track,” one distant cousin says a little haughtily, taking a sip of wine.

Percy’s smile goes frigid on his face. Annabeth jumps in to try and stop the potential train wreck she can see racing down the track. “Percy does a lot of volunteer work with at-risk and low-income teenagers,” she says, desperately trying to find a safe topic and hoping it wasn’t something he already talked about while she was zoning out. “Do you still donate to that soup kitchen, Caroline?”

Caroline, standing half in their awkward semi-circle, looks confused as to why Annabeth is drawing her into conversation. “I do,” she says. She looks surprised that Annabeth knows anything about her at all. “Volunteering can make such a difference. That’s a wonderful way to spend your free time...”

“Oh, Percy,” he says. “It’s really nothing.”

“It’s not,” Annabeth insists, nudging him. “He’s really made a difference in his community.”

Percy’s face, usually so stoic around strangers, flushes a bit. “Well, Annabeth comes with most of the time. It’s cool that kids can see getting into an awesome school is actually possible if you work really hard and have a little luck.”

“How did you two meet?” Caroline asks. “I have to admit, I never thought I’d see the day that Annabeth brought a boyfriend.”

Which. God, what the fuck does everyone mean when they say that? Annabeth’s going to scream.

“We’ve known each other since middle school.” Percy’s previously amicable tone is now a little colder. “I guess it just took us a bit to figure things out.

Annabeth’s heart does something uncomfortable in her chest. “I’m so sorry,” she says in her best apologetic tone, “but it looks like Elaine wants our help with something. Will you excuse us?” Without waiting for an answer, Annabeth tugs Percy after her.

Percy leans down to mumble in her ear as she leads them to the snack table. “I thought I was supposed to be talking you up, Major Tom.”

“Well, they’re going to see right through us if you keep laying it on that thick.”

“I wasn’t laying it on,” Percy protests. “All of that stuff’s true. I didn’t even get to mention your Dean’s List appearances, or the conference you got invited to last spring.”

“Did you bring a list?” Annabeth asks, incredulous, right as they reach the snacks. 

“No,” Percy insists, sounding almost insulted. “I don’t need a list.” 

“Well, you blew it with Caroline,” Annabeth says, trying to track down the platter of spring rolls. “She’ll never believe that I do volunteer anything.”

“But you do.” Percy sounds confused.

“I really don’t.”

“Did I hallucinate all the times you’ve come with me to Ali Forney Center volunteer pop ups?”

“Oh, give me a break,” Annabeth complains, giving up on her hunt for spring rolls and swapping out her empty flute for a full one. “I steal coffee from those like crazy.”

“It’s not stealing, Ivy League. They offer volunteers coffee.”

“Not as much as I take,” Annabeth mutters. 

Percy laughs at her, the bastard. “This is totally weird, isn’t it?”

Annabeth groans and buries her face in his blazer. “So weird.”

He wraps her in a loose hug. “Why is everyone so surprised you have a boyfriend? You’re, like, super hot.”

And she’s so glad her face is already hidden so that Percy can’t see her blush. “I think it’s because I was the only girl for a really long time, and I wasn’t super girly growing up. Caroline’s daughter, she’s only eight. I was never really the right kind of girl to them. It wasn’t, uh…” She shrugs. “I usually tried to be the opposite of what they wanted me to be. I’m sure that didn’t help things.”

“You’re being really gracious,” Percy observes. “I wouldn’t be, if I were you.”

Annabeth snorts and steps back to look at him. “When have you ever been gracious, Percy Jackson?” 

“Uno reverse,” he says incredulously. “When have you?” 

“I’m growing and changing,” Annabeth says haughtily, trying to make him laugh. “New year, new me.”

“Quit it,” he tells her, nudging her shoulder with his. “I like the old you; she’s my best friend.”

Annabeth’s core temperature ramps up about a hundred degrees. At this rate, she isn’t going to survive the night. “Oh,” she says. “Well, that’s…change can be good.”

He gives her an unconvinced look. “Bizarro Annabeth is weird,” he says firmly. “No more multiverse travel.” 

The comic book reference wooes her to an embarrassing degree. “Alright,” she relents. “No more grace.”

“If that wine guzzler from earlier walks past me, I’m tripping her,” Percy declares. “Just try and stop me.”

“I won’t,” Annabeth mutters. “Oh, fuck. Oh, shit, I forgot to warn you about—”

“Annabeth!”

Annabeth plasters on her fakest smile. “Lara!”

They hug, and Annabeth doesn’t even try to step on her toes or anything.

“And you must be Percy,” Lara says with their air of someone who has found a new victim. “You’re far more attractive than we were expecting,” she observes, like an absolute ogre. “Annabeth can be pretty enough if she tries but she never really does, you know? No make up, odd clothes.”

Percy’s expression shifts from vaguely self-conscious to downright murderous as she speaks, his eyes flicking towards Annabeth. She half steps in front of him to try and prevent a felony. 

“No offense, of course,” Lara continues with a particularly nasty smile. 

Annabeth sends a nasty smile right back. “Of course,” she agrees. You raging, heinous bitch, she thinks. 

“I’m offended,” Percy jumps in, the hard edge of his voice the antithesis of the gentle pressure of his hand on Annabeth’s hip. “That was rude and untrue. Annabeth’s far more beautiful without makeup than you are with it, and her clothes are cool.”

Annabeth bites her lip to avoid grinning at Lara’s shocked face. The urge to laugh doesn’t fade even as Lara schools her expression into something more haughty. 

“Now I see why you’re with her,” she says. “You two are a perfect match.”

“Yep,” Annabeth replies, not even bothering to try and hide how gleeful she sounds. “Goodbye, Lara. Let’s not talk soon.”

Lara scowls at them, but she stalks away without further comment. Annabeth feels Percy lean into her space a moment before he mutters, “I don’t normally like to call people this, but what a bitch. Who’s she?”

Annabeth snorts. “She really is,” she admits, “but her mom is a tenured professor at Berkeley, so they always get invited. American Studies, I think? Sorry I forgot to warn you about her, I was honestly more worried about Elaine’s relatives. That was more…direct than she usually is.”

“You’re fine.” Percy moves to her side, but keeps his hand on her hip. Annabeth can’t help but be hyper aware of how close they stand together—it’s like her ADHD lights up and has her senses going haywire. “Sorry I wasn’t more, uh…charming, I guess.”

“We need to stop apologizing,” Annabeth declares, coming to her decision with sudden and stunning clarity. “You be you, and I’ll be me, and if they don’t realize how sexy and smart we are it’s their fucking loss.”

Percy laughs into a sip of his Coca-Cola. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Annabeth nods firmly. “I’m literally standing here, proof that they were always wrong about where I’d end up, and if they’re still saying all that dumb shit then what’s the point, you know? Fuck it.”

“Fuck it,” Percy agrees, raising his drink to clink against hers. It’s more of a thuck sound, can against flute, but whatever. “I’m glad you’re letting this shit go, babe.”

Annabeth almost chokes on her sip of champagne, but manages to hold it in her mouth last second and swallow normally. This babe is different from the others, not said where someone can purposefully overhear. Given the blush on Percy’s cheeks and the way he immediately chugs half of his drink, Annabeth guesses he probably didn’t mean to let it slip out. 

“Will you survive a minute alone if I pee?” he asks, shaking his now empty can. “I’ve been putting these away like crazy.”

“Go,” she says, “but no running away without me.”

He presses a quick kiss to her cheek and scampers away. Annabeth takes a massive sip of champagne.

//

On her tenth birthday, Annabeth takes a pair of scissors to every t-shirt that she has at Camp. The sleeves get snipped off, the hems get fringed, and the collars get frayed. Her jorts are next, and then the cargo shorts she snagged from the lost and found. 

Her hair is last, but she’s smart enough to not do that one herself. When she knocks on the door of Cabin 1, it’s Thalia who answers. To her credit, she doesn’t laugh. “You look badass, dude,” she says, leaning against the door jam and looking effortlessly cool. 

“Thanks.” Annabeth fiddles with the scissors in her hands. “Could you, um…you cut your own hair, right?”

Thalia shaved the sides of her head earlier that summer, leaving her with a currently overgrown mohawk. “Totally.”

“Could you maybe…” Annabeth trails off again and shoves the scissors towards her.

“You want me to chop it off?” Thalia raises her eyebrows. “You sure? Luke probably has a steadier hand. Chiron might take you into town if you ask real nice.”

“I want you to do it,” Annabeth insists. “Your hair is always, um…” She blushes. “Really cool.”

Thalia grins and takes the scissors. “Well, come on in, then. I think I might be able to layer it if I can find some hair clips.”

//

Annabeth finally manages to locate the spring rolls and stuffs her face with them to avoid conversation while Percy is gone. It kind of works—Elaine’s elderly aunt Josephine comes by to tell Annabeth that Percy seems like a lovely young man, which is a pleasant surprise. 

After that, she and Lara approach the drinks table at the same time, notice each other, and abruptly turn around. Annabeth suffers through awkward but fundamentally kind small talk with Rob for a few minutes until his kids distract him, and then she begins to worry that Percy has made his great escape without her.

She wanders towards the kitchen, away from the steadily louder crowd in the living room. Percy appears like she’s wished him into being, like a mirage in the desert with a drink in his hand. Annabeth rushes him, unphased when he jerks back in surprise at her sudden appearance. 

“Is that—oh, relax, it’s me—is that champagne?” She reaches for the flute. 

Percy moves his hand out of her reach. “No,” he says, even though that’s clearly what it is. 

Annabeth blinks in shock. “What?”

“This isn’t for you.”

Annabeth blinks again, slowly crossing her arms. “Who’s it for, then?”

“Your aunt.”

“Which aunt?”

Percy smiles weakly. “So, I totally have a reason for letting Rose ask me for a drink—”

“Seriously?” Annabeth asks lowly. “You’re getting her a drink after today?” She lunges for the flute again. 

Percy is just fast enough to keep it from her and to keep it from spilling. “Stop, Annabeth, you don’t understand—”

“Gimme it,” she grunts out, her arms reaching around his torso in a desperate bid for the drink. “You Staten Island piece of shit.”

Percy gasps, scandalized, but Annabeth isn’t able to capitalize on the moment. Her ankle twists strangely as she wiggles around, sending her stumbling into Percy’s chest. 

“I spit in it,” Percy finally whispers, his mouth only inches from her ear as he awkwardly supports her weight. “Okay? I spit in the cup. So you can’t drink it.”

Annabeth freezes. Slowly, she brings her arms down around his waist, turning their scuffle into a hug. “You spit in it,” she repeats. 

Percy laughs a little, his chest shaking against her own. “Uh, yeah, I did. Yes. I spit in the champagne.” His champagne-less arm wraps around her back. 

Annabeth hides her smile in his shoulder. “Fuck, you’re the best.”

“Yeah?”

She squeezes his waist. “Think there’s room in that flute for me to join the party?”

“Flute?”

“The champagne glass.”

“Oh.” His fingers tap against Annabeth’s shoulder blade. “I think she’ll notice if we spit any more, to be honest.”

“C’mon, Percy,” Annabeth cajoles, lifting her head slightly so her breath goes right against his neck. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“You’re terrible,” Percy says, sounding strained. “Really terrible.”

“You’re the one who spit in my aunt's champagne!”

“You’re a bystander,” he counters. 

Annabeth steps back, wrapping her hand around Percy’s where it grips the flute stem. Carefully, she lifts it to her mouth and spits inside. “Now I’m an accomplice.”

When she looks up, Percy is smiling at her, the corners of his mouth just barely curved up. It’s a smile that makes her think of a starry sky. Her hand lingers against his, then drops away. 

He swirls the champagne around to mix it together a bit. “Looks good to me,” he says, holding it up to the light. “You were right, as usual.”

“Sorry I called you a ‘Staten Island piece of shit,’” Annabeth apologizes. “I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s fine, it looked bad,” Percy admits, shrugging. “At least you didn’t say I was from Jersey.”

Annabeth grins. “Oh, perish at the thought.”

He pokes her nose, managing to pull his hand to safety before she can smack it away. “Ready to get back out there?”

“Yeah.” Annabeth takes a breath to steel herself and then turns around. “Autobots, roll out.”

When she’s a few steps away, she hears Percy mumble, “fuck, you’re the best.”

By the time they make to where Rose is holding court, their fingers are tangled together. It was mostly so Annabeth could tug Percy through the crowd without losing him, but she doesn’t relinquish her grip even as they come to a stop. 

“There you are with my drink,” Rose says when her eyes settle on Percy. “I thought you might’ve gotten lost.” She reaches out and takes the offered flute. “I guess Annabeth must’ve just pulled you away.”

Percy’s grip gets a little tighter around her hand, but it’s like Annabeth can’t feel a single barb. Her eyes are locked on the champagne as her aunt takes a hearty first sip. 

“He really is a good one, Beth,” Rose tells her, and then focuses back on Percy. “Don’t let her drive you away, you hear me? God knows she’ll try. She doesn’t get that from Elaine or Frederick, believe me.”

It’s like Percy’s whole body goes from muscle to stone. Annabeth takes a step back, trying to tug him away with little success. “I told Elaine we’d help with the hors d’oeuvres,” she lies, yanking sharply at Percy’s arm. “C’mon, babe.”

Percy finally lets himself be moved with the third tug, following her stiffly back through the crowd without a goodbye. 

“She’s not worth it,” Annabeth tells him, finding that she truly believes it. “She’s bitter and angry because she married a guy who doesn’t love her instead of following her own dreams and passions, so she takes it out on me, because I’m doing exactly what she never had the guts to. She’s not worth it,” she repeats. 

“You’re worth it,” Percy counters. 

Annabeth comes to a halt. They’re at the edge of the room, kind of close to some professors from Berkeley but far enough away they won’t be overheard. “What?” 

“I’ll yell at her,” Percy says with a kind of breathless intensity that leaves Annabeth stunned. “I’ll yell super loud in front of everyone about how terrible she is. I don’t care.”

“Percy,” Annabeth just manages to get out of her thick feeling throat.

“I mean it,” he insists. “I want to. I want to throw that spit champagne in her stupid, asshole face. I don’t care if it means your family will hate me, Annabeth, it’s not like I’m not going anywhere. She deserves it.” He clears his throat and tugs a bit at his collar. “You’re worth it,” he repeats. 

Annabeth focuses on getting air in and out of her lungs. That’s not something she usually has to think about, but it’s suddenly quite difficult for her. 

“Sorry, I—are you okay?” He takes a step closer, as though that will help any of the impulses and urges currently surging through Annabeth’s body and mind. 

Annabeth blinks and is a little surprised when a tear slides down her cheek. “Shit, yeah,” she gets out, finally letting go of his hand to reach up and wipe her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Uh, you’re crying, actually.”

She snorts. “I’m really okay,” she reiterates. 

“I wouldn’t be if I grew up with that as my aunt,” Percy says, smiling weakly. “She seriously sucks.”

Annabeth reaches out, momentarily unable to keep her hands from Percy’s biceps. “Believe me, I know, but I really don’t care what she says,” Annabeth promises. “Did you see the way she knocked back that champagne?” 

Percy grins, a kind of sparkle appearing in his eye. “Did I ever. If I could stand talking to her I’d be bringing her drinks all night.”

Bobby appears on Annabeth’s other side. “Saw you talking to Auntie Thorn,” he says, his hands occupied by deviled eggs stacked precariously on a napkin. “You good?”

Annabeth steps a little bit out of Percy’s personal space, feeling caught even though that’s exactly the ruse they’re supposed to be perpetuating. “I’m fine,” she tells him, vaguely disgusted at how quickly he’s eating. “But you and Matthew owe me $5. I was just pulling Percy away before he decked her.”

“Aw, why’d you do that?” Bobby complains. 

“I’m begging you to chew with your mouth closed,” Annabeth tells him. 

“We haven’t had a good fight at one of these things since you knocked that professor’s kid into the bushes for—”

“We all remember,” Annabeth interrupts. 

“No, we do not,” Percy says, slinging an arm around Annabeth’s shoulders to body her out of the way. “Say more, please.”

Annabeth glares at her brother while attempting to step blindly on Percy’s toes. Bobby freezes with a deviled egg inches from his mouth. “I’m so conflicted right now,” he admits, “but since my birthday’s coming up, I’ll be shutting my mouth.”

“Good boy,” Annabeth says.

“Traitor,” Percy accuses, his smile taking the bite out of it. 

Annabeth settles under Percy’s arm, mollified into no longer trying to step on him. To Bobby, she says, “for your loyalty, I’ll share that Rose is drinking from a champagne flute that Percy and I both spit in.”

Bobby chokes on his last deviled egg. Percy takes his hand from Annabeth’s shoulder and reaches a few inches farther to slap him on the back. “You need to come every year,” Bobby coughs out, thankfully using his now empty napkin to wipe his mouth. “Seriously, dude. Open invite. Oh my god, look at her drinking.”

Annabeth bites down on a smile, leaning a little more into Percy’s side. A bit tentatively, she brings her arm up around Percy’s waist, for once relishing in the feeling of fitting together like puzzle pieces instead of pushing it away. 

Bobby and Percy keep joking around, but Annabeth doesn’t really hear them. Her brain is rewinding and replaying Percy’s words from a few minutes ago, over and over again. 

You’re worth it. 

Her mind stutters on his expression as he’d said it, on the crinkle between his eyebrows and the determined set of his mouth. 

And Annabeth thinks: is there even a risk? And even if there is—even if things maybe get weird—would it be worth it?

And she realizes, as Percy laughs at something Bobby’s said, that really that’s the same as asking if Percy is worth it. And she knows the answer to that without having to think. 

And Annabeth can’t call what happens next an epiphany—that would mean that it’s something she hasn’t known all along, and she’s always known this. She’s known it with the surety that her next step will land planted when her foot’s in the air. She’s known it since she was twelve years old, and somehow learned it every day since then, and still she stands in shock as it manages to break through her head:

It’s Percy. It’s always going to be Percy. 

Percy has always been worth it. 

//

Annabeth jerks awake from her unplanned nap and knocks her APUSH textbook off of her desk. “Crap,” she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes. What time is it? It’s dark outside, and last she remembers it had definitely been light.

Her phone dings. It’s probably what woke her up. She squints at the screen, then unlocks it to read Percy’s texts.

hey im outside

annnnnnaabethhhh 

rapunzel rapunzel let down ur hair

Annabeth stumbles out of her desk chair and towards the window. She braces one hand against the sill and slams it upwards with the other, enabling her to get her fingers under it to yank it up. When she sticks her head outside, Percy is waiting in the shadow of the awning below. 

“What are you doing here?” She hisses at him.

Percy grins up at her, takes a jogging start at the wall, and jumps. He manages to grab onto the top of the first floor window and brace his foot against the grooves in the brick well enough to shimmy his way up to Annabeth’s second floor room. 

“Move,” he grunts, face a little red from the exertion.

Annabeth steps to the side to hold the window pane open until he flops through it, landing on her dorm room floor with a thump. He lays there, panting, while Annabeth carefully closes the window to prevent even more strange noises from coming from her room. 

“I’m studying,” she tells him. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to help you study,” he says. He gives her a thumbs up. “Tell me something that happened in 1803.”

“That’s not how the AP exam works.”

“So, you don’t know anything that happened in 1803?”

“Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” Annabeth says, only a little grudgingly.

“1962.”

“Cuban Missile Crisis.” After a second, she adds, “and Taco Bell is founded.”

“Shut up,” Percy says, sitting upright. “Is that on the AP?”

“No, of course not.”

He pouts. 

Annabeth shakes her head at him. “I’ll give you my flash cards,” she says, “but we’re focusing, okay? Absolutely no tomfoolery.”

“When have I ever tomfooled?”

She looks at him.

He salutes her. “Ready to focus up, boss. Let's get you a 5.”

//

The annual Chase family New Year’s Eve party actually only lasts until around 9:30. They all watch the ball drop in New York, and the scores of sleepy kids and disdainful teenagers are ushered to their cars and driven away by grudgingly sober parents. Annabeth figures that’s what’s always made it such a highly attended event—everyone can continue on with actual plans for midnight.

If she had hid in the bathroom while the clock bumped over from 8:59 to 9:00, that’s no one’s business but her own. She does go to Percy right afterwards, at least, and even presses a kiss to his cheek. Annabeth feels the tension slide from her shoulders as they say goodbye to Elaine’s relatives and friends, catching more approving looks than she expected in her wildest dreams.

“I think we might’ve crushed it,” she whispers to Percy.

“Duh,” he whispers back. “Do you know why your brother’s blushing so hard?”

“Which one?”

“Bobby.”

Annabeth finds him pretty easily in the slowly thinning crowd. Sure enough, his face is doing a masterful impression of a tomato. “Oh my god,” she says. “Do you think he—”

“Who here was his age?”

“Um, the other dentist at Elaine’s practice has a daughter his age, I think,” Annabeth tries to recall. “Usually Elaine lets the twins invite a few friends, too, so it could be one of them.”

“Annabeth,” Percy says, knocking his shoulder against hers over and over again. “Did he just have his first kiss on New Year’s Eve? Dude.”  

“That’s so cute.” She feels her throat close up. “I’m literally about to cry.”

“We can’t tease him,” Percy says. 

“We really can’t,” Annabeth agrees. “This is so going into my mental filing cabinet of older sister knowledge, though.” 

Percy grins like he wants to ask what else she knows, but before he can say anything her father appears before them.

“Dad,” she says. “I haven’t seen you all night.”

“I spent a great deal of it hiding,” he admits with a tense smile. “Would you mind getting the clean up started? Your mother doesn’t want ants in the house again.”

“‘Course, Dr. Chase,” Percy agrees easily. To Annabeth, he says, “divide and conquer?”

“I’ll take trash collection if you do dishes,” she offers.

“Deal.”

Her dad watches them put their hands together and then break with an odd expression on his face. When Percy makes for the kitchen, he says, “you two work well together. You seem very…in sync.”

“Thanks, Dad. Do you want me to put the trash on the back porch?”

“Please.”

Annabeth goes about collecting stray napkins and tiny paper plates of half-eaten hors d'oeuvres. There’s a weird spill by the umbrella stand that she makes the twins clean up, but they’ve both vanished by the time she’s gotten the trash bagged up and put outside. Little shits. 

The guests are gone, although Annabeth can hear noises from the kitchen. She wanders towards it, slipping off her shoes as she goes.

“Dr. Chase? Can I ask you something?”

Annabeth stops just outside the kitchen. It’s Percy’s voice, just barely audible over the running kitchen sink. 

“Sure,” Elaine says. Dishes clink together. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you not know the way your family speaks to Annabeth? Or do you just not care?”

Annabeth gapes from her hiding spot. The tap shuts off, and the pregnant pause implies that Elaine is similarly shocked. 

“The way they talk to her?” She finally asks. 

“This whole evening,” Percy explains. His voice is unsettlingly even. “Everyone has belittled and insulted her. Her behavior, her manners, her social life, even her looks. It was appalling.”

“I…”

“And Annabeth doesn’t love to talk about it, obviously,” Percy continues, “but I got the feeling before I came here that something like this was going to happen. Like she expects it. Which means it’s happened before, and happened often.”

“The older generation of my family just doesn’t understand her,” Elaine says. 

“But most of them are your generation,” Percy counters. “Josephine was actually really lovely, from what Annabeth said.”

“Percy,” Elaine says with a deep sigh, “I know that you’ve known Annabeth for a long time, but she’s different around us. She is…disdainful. Of all of us. It isn’t so outrageous that they see that and respond to it.”

“It is outrageous.” Percy’s voice leaves no room for argument. “It is outrageous that you let them speak to her like that.”

“I know you’re just trying to defend your girlfriend, but I know that you know she can give just as good as she gets. She’s not innocent in all of this.”

“Annabeth is my best friend,” Percy says, “and you’re right that I know her better than anyone. I know how deeply she cares about all of you, and how much that hurts her. All the time.”

The sink begins to run again, and Annabeth inches closer to try and hear whatever Elaine says in response, but she can’t quite make it out. 

“Why does that matter?” Percy asks next, his voice more curious than upset like before.

“She was doing well,” Elaine answers, shutting off the water again. “She really was. We were all doing so much better, once she went to Camp, and then it was like we were back where we started once we moved.”

“Because she had stability,” Percy explains, “and you ripped it away. Do you have any idea how much that hurt her?”

“She couldn’t wait to get away from us,” Elaine says. “She hated San Francisco without even giving it a chance. She practically staged a hunger strike to get to leave.”

“You threw her off balance,” Percy corrects, “and the moment she made things difficult you sent her away. Again.”

“Again?”

“When you talk about how great Camp was for all of you—you realize you’re saying that sending her away is what, like, ‘fixed’ her? That’s what she hears?”

“She loved that camp! All she ever wanted was to get back there as soon as possible.”

Percy laughs, but it isn’t a nice sound. “I wonder why that is, Dr. Chase?” 

The silence that follows is agonizing. Annabeth claps a hand over her mouth to try and muffle her breathing. 

“She didn’t even give San Francisco a chance,” Elaine eventually reiterates. “She wrote it off immediately, and us along with it. Of course that didn’t endear her to my relatives.” 

“She gave it a year and a half!” Percy shoots right back. “And you ignored her when she tried to talk to you about it. You just told her to suck it up. She was struggling and you—” He cuts himself off as his voice rises, clearing his throat. “You just told her to try harder. You told her she was being lazy. When she couldn’t focus, when the words were all upside down on the page, you just told her to try harder. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? Sorry. I didn’t mean to curse. It was messed up, Dr. Chase. You can’t ‘focus’ ADHD and dyslexia away. She needed help and you ignored her.”

“I have spent sixteen years trying to make Annabeth happy,” Elaine hisses. “I have poured money into therapists and extracurriculars and schools and gifts. She is uninterested in me. She is uninterested in this family.”

“She’s never felt like a part of your family, and after this week it isn’t hard to see why. When Camp helped you decided that she should just spend as much time as possible out of the house. How do you think seeing you fill her weekends up with activities felt when Bobby and Matthew were at home with you and her dad?”

Elaine clears her throat. “That isn’t…”

“It’s what she felt,” Percy insists, “and frankly, Dr. Chase, I don’t care how terrible she was when she was a kid, because she was a kid. You were the adult. It’s not on her to be mature and controlled when she’s seven years old, or twelve, or even fifteen. She was your child.”

“Annabeth doesn’t see herself as my child.”

“So, that means you sit back and do nothing as your family insults her for a decade? Do you know what being a bystander is?”

Silence, again. Annabeth wipes at her nose with a corner of her dress, trying her hardest not to sniff. 

“I’m getting my degree in Social Work,” Percy says, seemingly apropo of nothing, “and I’m not saying this to be rude, or imply things about your home, but I think one of the most important things we learn is that neglect is a kind of abuse.” Dishes clatter together again. “Thank you very much for having me this week, Dr. Chase. I appreciate it.”

His steps approach faster than Annabeth can flee. When he stalks out of the kitchen he sees her immediately; his eyes go wide. To his credit he doesn’t say anything, knowing that Elaine will be able to hear it. Instead, he takes her hand and leads her up the stairs, keeping his footsteps heavy to mask the sound of hers. 

The door to her bedroom clicks shut behind her. She leans her weight against it and looks at Percy. 

He keeps his back to her for a long moment. His suit jacket is gone, and his sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, probably so that he could do the dishes. It leaves the strong lines of his forearm exposed. Annabeth stares. 

When he finally turns around, his mouth is a tense, flat line. His eyes are guilty. 

“You didn’t have to say all that,” Annabeth tells him. She’s relieved to find her voice even. 

“Are you mad?”

“No.” She pushes off the door and walks right into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Thank you,” she says into his collarbone.

His arms come up to wrap around her shoulders. “For losing my cool?”

“For getting me,” Annabeth corrects. 

“Oh.” He shifts his weight from one foot to another and then leans into a little more. “Yeah, any time.”

And Annabeth realizes: maybe she needed this. Maybe she needed Percy to see this with his own eyes. There’s a difference between him knowing every ugly, hurt part of her and him actually looking right at it. Maybe a part of her needed to see him face it. 

Here Percy is, after a week of it. Unchanged. 

It’s not like I’m going anywhere, he had said.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Annabeth says, because if she starts it like that there’s almost no way she can wimp out halfway through.

“Okay,” Percy agrees readily, sounding the slightest bit worried. 

Annabeth supposes that’s a natural conclusion, given her tone of voice. Her palms feel sweaty—God, were they sweaty when he’d pulled her away? Mortifying. 

She shakes her head. Focus. With a deep breath, she steps out of his arms and looks him right in the face. 

“So, I’ve been thinking,” she tells him. “About my life.”

“Okay,” Percy says again, slowly this time, clearly waiting for more to go on. 

“I’ve been chasing what I want for so long,” Annabeth continues. “Working so hard for it, and now it’s closer than it’s ever been before.”

Percy’s brow is still furrowed, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“And I think I’ve been going about it the wrong way?” It comes out as a question. She takes another deep breath. “Because obviously the life I want isn’t going to come down to one thing. There’s a lot of different aspects that will make up the life I want. That I’ve always wanted.

“I think, part of me has always subconsciously viewed valuing romantic relationships or being in a relationship as backwards, because I should be focusing on myself and my career. And I also think I kind of looked at it as achieving something. I think I lied to Elaine in the first place because I thought of ‘success’ as having everything—owning everything that a successful person does. Ticking all the boxes. Collecting all the pieces, I guess, but a person can’t be a piece that I collect to prove I’m doing adulthood right. That’s not what a boyfriend is! It’s a relationship.

“It’s something that develops,” Annabeth plows on, gaining steam, “and honestly I’ve been really hesitant of being the kind of girl who wants that so badly. I’m not a Jane Bennet; that won’t make me happy by itself, you know?”

The crinkle between Percy’s eyes, Annabeth’s favorite crinkle, becomes more pronounced. “The Keira Knightly movie,” she explains. “With all the dances, and the scene in the rain that makes me cry. The blonde older sister.”

Recognition dawns. “Right. The one who loves the goofy friend.” 

Annabeth smiles. Of all the ways to describe it, Percy would go with that. “Right. Her. I’m not her.” In love with a goofy friend, however...

“I...I don’t think anyone ever thought you were?”

“No,” Annabeth agrees. “They didn’t. Am I making sense?”

Percy rubs at the back of his neck. “Not really? Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” Annabeth reassures him, trying to find another way to make her point. “I guess...okay, so I’ve been focusing on architecture for forever, right?”

“Right.”

“And I do want that, that’s never changed, but focusing only on that is so…” she flounders for a moment before the words come to her. “Robotic. Soulless.”

“The buildings you design have lots of soul,” Percy protests. “And heart and passion and stuff. It’s obvious.”

Annabeth doesn’t know what to do with that. It rocks her, how confidently Percy believes that—believes in her. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m not trying to put myself down. I just want...I want to build something that matters.”

“Something permanent.”

“Things are permanent when they matter,” Annabeth explains. “And building things—creating things—it’s more than brick and stone. I want to make more than buildings.”

“Okay,” Percy says. “That...that makes sense.” He shifts his weight and leans towards her a bit, at ease again. “What do you want to create?”

Annabeth has never felt so utterly useless at speaking before. Speech and debate was her bread and butter all throughout high school, but one earnest expression from Percy Jackson and she forgets the English language. 

“You don’t have to know right now.” Percy smiles. “Figuring shit out is supposed to be what our twenties are for, right?” He wraps her up in another hug; her nose ends up pressed against his neck, his stupidly good-smelling neck. 

The tension she wasn’t even aware of slides from her shoulders like water pulled back by the tide. Percy holds her for a long moment, staying still even as her hands remain limp by her sides. Slowly, she brings her arms up to hug him back. 

‘How do you always know when I need a hug?’ she’d asked him in the airport. His blasé response about her love language being physical touch had been thoughtless—so much of her is obvious to him. 

Of all the love languages, of giving gifts and quality time, there’s one that makes her think of Percy’s most radiant smiles, one that comes with his flushed cheeks and relaxed laughter.

Annabeth takes a purposeful step back. “You matter,” she says. 

Percy smiles a little awkwardly. “Um, thanks? You do, too.”

“No, you—argh!” She reaches up and holds his face between her palms. “Percy. You matter to me. More than anyone. You are permanent.”

The fold between his eyebrows is back, but Annabeth lets him sit with it, holding him still as he processes, even as she kind of squishes his cheeks together. Slowly, surely the confusion fades from his expression. “Oh,” he whispers, barely making a sound.

Annabeth laughs a little breathlessly. Her eyes feel damp. “Yeah,” she says. 

Percy licks his lips. “Romantic relationships,” he recalls from her earlier rambling, his eyes flickering all around her face. It’s like he’s staring right into her soul. “Like...like, you mean…”

Annabeth nods, loosening her grip until it’s just her fingertips stroking around his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw. 

“Holy shit,” he breathes out. “Now?”

Annabeth blinks, knocked out of her trance. “Now,” she echoes. “What do you mean, ‘now?’”

“Um,” he says, floundering. “I just always figured—well, it’s us, you know?”

“I do know that,” Annabeth says, waiting for him to get to his point.

“I guess I always just thought we’d get there when we get there.”

Annabeth’s jaw goes slack. “I can’t believe you,” she growls, even though she absolutely can. She’s well versed in Percy’s straightforward, ass-backward logic, usually the opposite of the way she thinks about things but also, annoyingly, usually getting to about the same end point. 

Percy, who takes going with the flow so seriously that he sometimes has to walk a mile back to their beach towels after playing around in the ocean at Montauk. Annabeth, who will fight against the current just enough to keep their belongings in sight. Percy, who gets onto the subway from anywhere on the platform. Annabeth, who walks to exactly the right spot before boarding her train to avoid having to walk on the other side. 

“I didn't want to, like, be creepy about it,” Percy says. His face goes steadily pinker. “You’re my best friend.”

Annabeth laughs at that, even though it comes out all watery and weak. “You’re my best friend,” she says back. Her hands go from his face to his hairline, her fingertips grazing the soft baby strands. “Everyone gets mad when I say that.”

He makes a face at her, inches closer. “Same,” he whispers. His hand drags against her lower back and tugs her against his chest. “They don’t get it.”

It’s a very annoying realization, Annabeth finds: that all along, the person she really should’ve been talking this through with was Percy. After all, who else could it be? He’s the person who would get it. He’s the person who always gets it. 

When their lips finally meet, when they give in to the easy magnitude Annabeth doesn’t know how they ever resisted, it feels exactly like she always thought it would. 

//

Annabeth follows her father down the brightly lit hallway of the hospital, clutching his hand.

“Are you excited?” He asks her.

Annabeth shrugs. “I guess,” she says. “Do they look like me?”

“Well, babies don’t look much like anyone at first,” her dad explains. “Here we are.”

He lifts her up even though she’s getting to be a little too big, and his hands dig into her armpits until she gets settled on his hip. With his newly free hand, he points through the window to two little lumps in blue blankets. “Meet your baby brothers, Annabeth.”

Annabeth presses up against the glass, her eyes wide. “They’re really small,” she says.

Her dad laughs a little wetly. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Their names are Matthew and Robert. We think we’re going to call them Matty and Bobby, though. What do you think?”

She shrugs, still staring her brothers down. “When do babies start to talk?”

“Oh, not for a long time. Over a year, usually.”

“When did I first talk?”

“Just under a year, of course. My brilliant girl.”

Annabeth preens. 

Her father’s arms start to shake and he lowers her back down again. He follows her down to the ground, kneeling so that he can look her in the eye. “You’re a big sister now, Annabeth,” he says, his voice grave. “That’s a very important job.”

She reaches out and touches the temples of his glasses. “What do I have to do?”

“You have to try really hard to set a good example for them, okay? They’re going to be looking to you to see what to do.” He pokes her on the nose and grins at the giggle she lets out. “I know they’re going to end up great because they’re going to want to be just like you.”

“Okay,” she agrees with a firm nod. “Bobby and Matty and me.”

He grins at her. “The Chase siblings,” he says. “I’m already the proudest Dad in all of Virginia.”

//

Something is ringing. 

Annabeth frowns into her pillow. She sticks a hand out of the covers and smacks around her very (large?) pillow until she finds the phone. With a few blind taps, it’s once again blissfully quiet. 

Annabeth relaxes into her pillow again. It’s warm, and smells good, and tempts her back to sleep easily. 

“We have to get up,” Percy mumbles. 

She jumps nearly a foot in the air in surprise, kneeing Percy directly between his legs as she goes. 

“Fuck,” he yelps. He curls into a protective ball, and Annabeth realizes that the comfy pillow had in fact been his chest. 

“I’m so sorry,” she says, mortified. She wraps an arm around him, an apologetic big spoon. “Are you okay?”

He groans pitifully. “I’m very awake,” he grunts.

“Sorry,” she says again. 

“This isn’t the first time you’ve kneed me in the dick and balls.”

“First time it’s been before 9AM,” she says, pressing a kiss against the back of his neck. 

He relaxes against her. “True.”

“Can I get you ice or something?”

“I’m not sitting in a car with ice on my dick with your step-mom the morning after I yelled at her.”

“You didn’t really yell.”

He twists around to glare at her. “Technicalities. I will brave this injury in silence if you buy me gummy straws at the airport.”

His eyes are so green. Because she wants to, because she can, Annabeth leans in and kisses him, morning breath be damned. “Deal,” she says. 

Percy nudges closer with his nose. The phone alarm goes off again, right next to his head, and it’s his turn to jump. 

Right into Annabeth’s face. 

“Fuck,” she groans, slapping a hand over her throbbing nose.

Percy silences his phone, stuttering out apologies of his own. “Oh my god, this is a disaster,” he whines, tumbling backwards and out of the cramped bottom bunk. “Bunk beds were not made for snuggling.”

“You know what?” Annabeth says, her voice coming out a little nasally. “I’m so ready to get out of here. The west coast blows.”

Percy looks up at her, bedhead and almost-stubble and sleepy eyes. He looks at her as though she’s just told him that she has single handedly eradicated the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, Wise Girl.”

//

Grover Underwood

ok i am getting some seriously romantic vibes through my bestie senses. my bestie senses are tingling rn. i have done an hour of yoga and the vibes are still raging. RAGING! please reply posthaste, perseus. 

//

“Dad,” Annabeth says, sticking her head into his office.

Her father looks up from the map that’s spread across his desk, his glasses slipping down his nose. “Annabeth,” he says. He sounds surprised. “I thought you were on your way out.”

Annabeth comes in and sits down without asking if he’s got a second. “We are. I just need to talk to you about something, real quick.” 

“Alright.” He takes his glasses off and slips them into the breast pocket of his shirt. The hair on one side of his head is sticking up funny, like he’s been tugging on it since he woke up.

“Thank you,” Annabeth starts, “for my Christmas present.”

Her dad looks over to where the plane they made sits on one of his bookshelves, taking up precious real estate. There’s a new pile of books stacked on the floor nearby.

“I had fun making it with you,” she continues. 

“So did I,” he says.

“I always noticed,” Annabeth plows on, almost speaking on top of him, “when you were somewhere else.” She gestures vaguely around her head. “Not being present. And for you and me, that’s just how it was. We’d both do stuff differently, I bet, but I don’t have to explain to you that the past’s in the past, you know?”

Her dad stares at her, his mouth parted in something like shock. 

“The thing is, though,” Annabeth says, pushing through the thick feeling in her throat, “is that the twins have had Elaine.”

He opens his mouth to interrupt, but Annabeth whips up a hand to stop him. 

“I know, I know—I had her too. But it’s different.” She leans forward. “They have had her covering for you for their entire lives.”

Her dad breaks the eye contact, looking back to the plane they put together. He blinks rapidly. 

“Except they aren’t stupid, and they aren’t little kids anymore. They notice that shit, Dad. If you want—” Her voice breaks. She breathes in and out and tries again. “If you want to change, you have to do it. The dumb little basketball games, the concerts, the…the track meets. That’s the shit that counts.”

He finally looks back at her. His eyes are wet, but his cheeks are dry. “I know,” he says softly.

“There’s only so many times you can apologize for the same stuff, Dad. It stops meaning anything if you never try and do better.”

He nods. She nods back. 

“Okay,” she says. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

Her father gets out of his chair and comes around the desk to hug her. She sinks into it, into the smell of him, the scratchiness of his shirt. “Happy New Year, Annabeth,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she replies. With one last squeeze, she steps out of his embrace and then out of his office. She goes past the room that once belonged to her brothers, past the bathroom with a cabinet filled with toothbrushes, past the photographs that line the stairs. Percy is waiting for her by the front door, wearing his gray Columbia baseball cap, tugging at his collar to try and get it to cover a hickey. 

He grins when he sees her. It lights up his whole face. “Hey. Ready to go? Your step-mom’s in the car.”

Annabeth shoves her feet into her shoes, doesn’t bother doing up the laces. She takes Percy’s hand in her own. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” she says.

//

Grover Underwood

omg annabeth chase … did you let that dirty water hotdog pizza rat boy into your fortress…

//

“You two have everything?” Elaine asks, throwing the car into park once she finds an empty space at the departures drop off. 

“Think so,” Annabeth says. “Thanks for driving us.”

Percy looks between them and then opens up his door. “I’ll grab the bags. Thanks again for having me, Dr. Chase.”

She raises a hand in farewell, and then it’s just the two of them.

“Percy and I had a conversation last night,” Elaine tells her, “I’m not sure if he mentioned it.”

“He did,” Annabeth says. 

Her step-mom’s expression falls at that. “Oh. Well, I think…no, I know that there’s a lot unsaid between us. I wish we understood each other better, Annabeth.”

“So do I,” Annabeth admits.

The traffic officer outside blows his whistle and ushers cars along. Annabeth scoots along the backseat to the door on the curbside. 

“Do you—” Elaine falters. “We would love to have you in San Francisco over your spring break,” she says. “If that works with your schedule. I know you’re busy.”

Annabeth looks out the car window where Percy is waiting for her, one of his legs jiggling like crazy, and then back to her step-mom. “I don’t know,” she says. After a beat of excruciating silence, she adds, “I’ll let you know. I really did have a good week, Elaine. Um, Happy New Year.”

She gets out of the car and takes her bag from Percy’s shoulder. Knowing full well how uncomfortable PDA makes her step-mom, she tugs her best friend down into a moderately PG-13 kiss.

“Let’s go home,” she whispers.

//

the groupchat formerly known as vegas gorlz 

Grover Underwood: if one of you doesnt respond i swear i am going to eat an entire aluminum can!

//

One last aside about Annabeth Chase:

For most of her life, she has been hurt and loved and trying to figure out which combination of the two will make her life manageable. 

She likes her pizza thin crust with olives on top, but sometimes she pretends to prefer deep dish to watch her boyfriend’s face go red.

She cries during every ASPCA commercial she’s ever watched, but can never bring herself to skip them. 

At age 13, she learned everything there was to know about Aquaman, even though she thought he was about the dumbest character in the entire DC universe. 

She loves so hard. She thinks she can learn to make that work to her advantage.

She’s always wanted to be the kind of girl who rollerblades, whatever that means.

She’s got a lot to figure out. 

She thinks she’s got a plan.

..