rated t | 2k | canonverse no war au | for @annabethy
Summary: In a world with no upcoming wars or quests, Percy and Annabeth are rivals just a little longer.
══════════════════
Rage pounds in her skull, a war drum.
After all these years at camp playing Capture the Flag, Annabeth finally gets stuck in jail with Percy Jackson of all people. The gods must be laughing. Or at least the other campers. She would go ahead and say that this is another one of Percy’s tricks but he seems as incensed as her. Still, Annabeth is weary. Anything is an opportunity to get the upper hand for him.
one "make s5 all go away, just in case" fic, coming right up!
She sees a stranger, a dark-haired man in a trench coat, walking down the street, just before she steers herself into Susie's office and perches herself on a chair, hoping to get that reminder out of her head.
It's lonely here without you.
She can't help thinking it. She hasn't been able to stop thinking it since that bittersweet, all-too-brief conversation at the airport. She hadn't realized, before, that it would be lonely without him around, without even the possibility of running into him at some club or bar or street corner, as if by some magic from the realm of the meant-to-be. It's a lot harder for a sneak attack to happen when it would require a transcontinental flight.
A faint curse from the opposite seat snaps Midge out of her reverie. She looks up to see Alfie fiddling with something - a mirror, maybe, or a deck of cards?
"Everything okay there, Alfie?" she asks. He looks up, seemingly surprised to see her there.
"I just... this trick... why won't it... See, I'm supposed to move my hands like this, and then—"
Alfie fumbles his prop, and Midge's world tilts on its axis.
She meets with Susie, then heads home. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, not now, nor when she gets up the next morning, or the days or months after that.
She goes to work, and works at Gordon's show day after day, making friends and gaining fame along the way, even while she keeps up with her own standup.
She supports Joel with Mei gone. She gets on a boat. She falls off a boat. She fights with Susie. She makes up with Susie. She fights with her parents. She makes up with her parents. She kisses a man. She runs away from a man.
She gets older.
She plays Carnegie Hall. She has her own show. She gets the worst news she's ever heard and cries until she doesn't think she can ever cry again. She does a major photoshoot in the ugliest outfit she's ever seen.
She gets older.
She's on TV. She's on stages across the country and around the world. She's in California and briefly thinks of him. She's everywhere. She's at the Friar's Club. She's got a mansion. She's getting interviewed.
She gets older.
An office slams into view around her.
"Alfie, what the fuck was that?!" Susie shouts, banging around the corner and looking like... well, like Midge probably looks about now. Midge doesn't quite hear what Alfie says; her own heartbeat pounding in her ears is the only thing she hears. She can't help it, touching her face (still smooth), her hair (still bouncy), her clothes (still gorgeous) to check that decades haven't actually passed since she was last sitting there, that everything is right.
Everything isn't right, though.
"I gotta go," she hears herself saying, pushing herself up out of her seat and towards the door. Before she gets all the way out, she darts back and plants a kiss on Alfie's cheek.
"What was that for?" he asks, a little more dazed than usual.
"I think you know," she says. She looks at Susie, who gives her a single, sharp nod. Alfie thinks for a moment, then offers his strange, sweet smile.
"It wasn't on purpose," he adds.
"The best things in life usually aren't," Midge says as she heads out the door with plans she needs to tweak and a phone call she needs to make.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
just posted my first hannigram fic on ao3! go check it out if you like time loops and angst and murder husbands being whipped for each other! (and also killing each other. true love!)
rated t | 12k | canonverse time travel au | for @bipercabeth
Summary: Annabeth is lost in time. Percy finds his way to her, but not without a few familiar faces helping him along the way.
══════════════════
Time kneels to no one, but Percy will take his chances.
Annabeth disappeared five months, two weeks, six days, and seventeen hours ago. Percy scoured the earth for her, even biting back the sharp tang of grief in his throat when he asked Nico if she was in the Underworld. Relief mixed with dread when Nico told him no.
She wasn’t anywhere.
Turns out Percy’s been asking the wrong question all this time. Anywhere is a bit of a misnomer. Anywhen is more accurate. And more of a pain in his ass.
Summary: Annabeth needs to bring Percy to her brother’s wedding since her entire family thinks they’re dating. After not speaking for over a year, he reluctantly agrees and Annabeth starts planning how to rebuild their friendship.
══════════════════
Loneliness is almost tangible.
Humans are made to lean against one another, to shoulder the burden of being alive. But before Annabeth met Percy, she had no one to lean on. Not her distant mother, not her detached father, not her loveless stepmother, or her carefree kids. Before Percy, the weight of loneliness folded her up into herself until she couldn’t take it anymore.
