“I’m not gonna attack him.” Annabeth chuckles, her posture loose and relaxed despite the circ*mstances. “Have a little faith, would ya?” She doesn’t let her gaze slip off the person that has been on her mind for the past months, despite the fact there’s multiple sets of hands holding her back.
“‘Scuse us for thinking you’re gonna try to kill the guy.” Piper mutters, the continued doubt is palpable, but after a moment she does release her hold on Annabeth. It takes another moment, but Leo, Jason, and Clarisse all let go of her too, though Clarisse squeezes her shoulder before letting go.
With no one holding her, Annabeth’s eyes stay locked with Percy as he steps forward in time with her. The two are mirrors of the other, calm in the anxious storm that is everyone around them –the Romans because of the intrusion that is the Greeks, and the Greeks because they know the potential nuclear explosion that could come out of these two reuniting. Because no matter what she or Percy says to their respective sides, now that the two are standing just a few feet apart there is nothing but tension between the two.
Romantic tension of course.
Sexual tension, invariably, simply by the fact they’re both teenagers who were really only it for each other.
Emotional tension is the real jagged stone between them though, with enough spikes and aberrations to shred any walls in the way.
On top of that, so many emotions that Annabeth can’t even begin to figure out where her head is, let alone her heart. She has spent so long thinking –imagining– what she would say to Percy when they were face to face again; though those plans had changed drastically when she learned his abandonment of her had less to do with his own volition and more to do with the cow queen. Now she doesn’t have the words to express herself; doesn’t even know what she’s thinking.
All she knows is that Percy’s in front of her.
Things are tense, have been for a while, but it feels more somehow now. Maybe it’s because she’s back at camp, and he’s back at camp and everyone clearly expects the two of them to be cute and lovey. Maybe it’s because she’s dealing with the grief that is having dealt with her stepmother’s family earlier in the week, and he’s dealing with the prolonged absence that is palpable to him now that his divine family is ignoring him for some unknown reason. Maybe it’s just the fact the two of them are still so new to being in a relationship, and don’t know how to deal with an actual argument about something as serious as the future.
All Annabeth knows is that each night she is caught between the incessant need to scream at Percy about the amorphous future and the omnipresent need to hold him tight and lose herself in his warmth. The last two days have been worse than Hades; at least down there she had a plan, and had an idea of what was coming. Here and now? She has no clue whatsoever.
They see each other, cause they couldn’t avoid each other fully if they wanted to, but each interaction is either awkward or tense between them. Granted, it’s better than the arguments they’ve had over Iris Messages, but that’s neither here nor there.
Though, it was bound to reach a head at some point, and that moment seems to be now if the rising frustration in Annabeth is any sign. Despite her and Percy’s repeated attempts, this conversation while sparring is quickly veering from casual to deep and about the future. And that’s the thing they fight the most about…
“So, what’re Sally and Paul planning on doing while you’re at camp?” Annabeth bats Percy’s swing with Riptide aside and quickly sweeps her foot to trip him.
In turn, Percy jumps over foot and steps even further into Annabeth’s space, forcing her to scamper back and avoid being tackled to the ground. This early in their match, only half an hour or so, the two are just chatting. Not even really worrying about winning or losing yet. “I think they’re going to Paul’s folks for Christmas, and then probably gonna just be around the house. They didn’t mention anything big to me at least.”
“And you’re fine being away for the whole break?” It isn’t a hidden fact at all that Percy hates being away from home, no matter how much he loves Camp. Annabeth’s brow pinches as she does her best to get a read as to what he’ll do next, the two are a step apart circling each other with tense poise. “Are you sure you don’t want to plan a weekend so you can head home?”
It’s an easy thing to plan, if he’ll go for it. “No, I’ll be fine.” He rushes in for a stab, with a last second side step to feint her out and get past her defense. “Besides, mom’s been pressuring me a lot lately.”
“For SAT prep again?” Annabeth can’t help but wince as she’s forced to block with her knife and take the brunt of the force bearing down on her on her forearm. She tries to find an opening to attack back, but is met with a brutal shove to the chest that she just barely manages to block and fall back from.
Percy doesn’t let up as he rushes in again and starts trying to break past her nigh unbreakable defense. “Yeah… She said it’s up to me and all that, but also just can’t stop mentioning or showing off colleges that I could consider with my track record. Made it real clear that she thinks I should go to college.”
“She’s not wrong.” Annabeth can’t help but voice with a confident air to her. “You gotta think about what comes next at some point, and college is–” She grunts and ducks under a particularly fast swing that she can’t block. “It’s important if you want a good job.”
“I just got out of a war, I don’t wanna worry about the future, I wanna enjoy the now.” Percy’s voice picks up, his words coming out harder with each sentence and his strikes going from the casual melee they were having to a more serious scuffle. “Think I’ve earned that much for all the sh*t I had to deal with.”
“You had to deal with?” Annabeth all but snarls as she takes a risk in pressing into his space and shouldering his chest. “We all dealt with it, and we’re still thinking about the future and putting in the work.” Her mind flashes back to a few days earlier, when her stepmother had questioned how Annabeth planned on paying for college given her own father wouldn’t support her since he had to save for her brothers’ college fund. “You’re not the only one who dealt with sh*t in the war Seaweed brain. And like it or not, we all gotta move on.”
Percy grits his teeth, grabs Annabeth’s wrist to stop her knife from slicing his cheek, and headbutts her with more force than she expected. “You think I don’t know that? None of us asked for this sh*t, none of us deserved what happened. And now that it’s all over, we all deserve to just relax and take a break. But. No one. Will. Actually. Let. Me. Stop.” He enunciates each word as he wrestles Annabeth down into a pin, his knee on her chest, her blade tossed to the side, and his breathing so heavy he looks like he’s gonna hyperventilate.
Annabeth contemplates wrapping her legs around Percy’s torso and twisting out of the pin, but the tired, haunted, and hurt eyes that stare into her give her pause. She sighs. With three quick taps to the ground, she surrenders. “You gotta think about the future at some point, Seaweed Brain. It’s only going to bite you in the butt otherwise.”
“That’s what everyone’s been saying.” Percy scoffs and pushes himself up off Annabeth. He offers a hand to pull her up too, and after they’re both standing he takes a breath. “Sorry… I…” He looks so tired, so done, but also completely unchanged in his thoughts. “I’m gonna go take a nap. I’ll see you tomorrow, Wise Girl, we can talk more then…”
The next day, Annabeth can feel her frustration growing with each step towards Cabin 3. It’s too early in the day to be fed up, but Percy knows how important counselor meetings are, and he knows better than to miss one. “I swear to all the gods Percy, if you slept through…” She opens the cabin door to find an empty room, completely clean and devoid of her boyfriend.
The two of them just stand silently in front of each other, still as statues and tense as bowstrings. Around them, Annabeth can see hundreds of Romans antsy for an excuse to close in on the Greeks; and from the corner of her eye, she can see her friends equally tense, though far more ready to defend than attack. In the distance she can hear the uneasy murmuring of restless onlookers, but the only thing she can focus on is Percy.
The man across from her is so much the same man she last saw months ago, and yet so much a different one altogether. His hair is somehow more wild –now reaching his shoulders with tenacious curls framing his more angular and rough face– and his posture is so much more rigid than before. He even has a scruffy, small beard. If not for the piercing oceanic eyes staring through her, Annabeth wouldn’t recognize him at all.
“I’m sorry.” Percy breaks their silence first, his expression full of remorse and his voice heavy with guilt.
For what Annabeth can’t imagine, but for once she doesn’t let her brain slow her actions. She closes the distance between them in a moment, arms wrapping around him in a tight hold that would crush mortals’ bones. Around them there’s the scraping of metal, the shouts of alarms, the startled halting of motion as their onlookers react, but she easily tunes them all out, focusing only on Percy. Her chin rests against his collarbone, just a hair too low to rest over his shoulder and keep her face forward.
Not that it matters, since the tears in her eyes come in floods, and she wouldn’t be able to see anything anyways. She’d feel embarrassed, if not for the fact she can feel Percy’s tears fall against her hair –his exhausted and weary bones finally getting rest if but for a moment in her arms. “You have nothing to apologize for, Seaweed Brain. I know it was all Queen Bitch’s fault.”
He pulls back, just enough so they can look into eachothers eyes again. It will never cease to amaze her just how expressive he can be, his eyes convey so much emotion that she could never even begin to understand. All she knows is that they have a lot to talk about. He smirks as he whispers just loud enough for her to hear. “I think I’ve come around to wanting to focus on a future away from all this. And actually planning and preparing for it.”
Annabeth can’t help the chortle that bursts out of her; he really does always keep her on her toes. After a second, she just smiles back, soft and full of far too much love for a teenager who has only been dating for less than a year (most of which was spent searching for a missing partner). “And here I was going to admit you were right about living in the now and taking advantage of whatever peace we can muster.”
His laugh is loud enough to make her ears hurt, and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere but right here. Next to him.
