part2 of my present for mortalsandmundanes, coming a little late
Annabeth doesn’t think much of the dark haired boy across the hall. She gets a brief glimpse as he carried his last cardboard box into the dorm, before he disappeared behind a closing door.
“His name’s Percy,” Piper, her roommate, quickly informs her. Annabeth’s head turns sharply to her new friend, who gives a toothy smile. “I caught you staring.”
Annabeth moves her hair to the front of her face in effort to hide her reddening cheeks. “I wasn’t staring,” she argues unconvincingly.
Piper laughs. “Sure you weren’t.”
She’s not a big fan of getting laughed at, even in jest, but Annabeth is determined to make friends here, so she swallows her pride and sucks it up.
And talking about the dark haired boy — Percy — is not going to help her case, so she changes topics. “By the way, are you going for the rush party tonight?”
All Annabeth can think of is collapsing into her bed. After an all-nighter and three lectures, it’s amazing how she’s still standing at all. Still, if this is what it costs to be able to design buildings for the New York City skyline when she graduates, she figures it’s a small price to pay.
But she stops short when she turns the corner into her corridor. He’s sitting by his door, long legs stretched across the hallway. If she chooses to avoid walking over him, she’s not left with much space to move. Although whether this is more a testament to the length of his legs or the narrowness of the hallway, Annabeth isn’t sure. His black hair falls over his eyes, which are focussed on his phone. A haversack, presumably his, leans against the wall. He’d probably come from class. She wonders what he’s doing outside his room when she notices the sock on his door. They’d never quite had a conversation together before, but it was about time for Annabeth to extend a neighbourly hand of goodwill.
“Percy,” she says. Either it’s too soft for him to hear or he’s too engrossed with whatever he’s doing, but he doesn’t look up, so she repeats herself. “Percy!”
This time he looks up. It seems to take him a moment to place her, but he quickly smiles. “Hey. Annabeth, right?”
He’s got the kind of smile that gets you labelled as a troublemaker. Right now it only succeeds in eliciting a smile from Annabeth.
“Yeah.” She points to his dorm. “Piper and Jason busy again?”
Percy nods. “She spends too much time in there. At this point I’m beginning to think she might as well move in.”
Annabeth acts shocked, hovering her hand in front of her mouth. “Move a whole two feet across the hall? I don’t think she’s ready for that yet.”
He almost laughs at that. “My bad. I hate to have offended you with my perverted ways.”
“I’m only forgiving you because you’re cute,” she teases, crossing over to her door. She fiddles with her keys for a bit before the door gives way. “You wanna come in? I bet they’re going to take a while in there and it’ll beat sitting alone on the hard floor.”
“It’s actually pretty soft,” he replies. But he stands up and follows Annabeth in anyway.
She’d meant to get a couple hours of rest in before grabbing dinner, but Annabeth has so much fun talking to Percy that sleep becomes the last thing on her mind. When Piper finally comes in, she’s almost sad to see Percy go.
Over the next few months they build a routine. Now when Percy finds a sock on his door he waits outside Annabeth’s room for her. And if she’s still in class, he doesn’t play games on his phone anymore, but texts her instead. Annabeth finds it increasingly more difficult to hide her laughter in the middle of lecture.
“So what’s up with you and Percy?” Piper asks one day at three a.m. when they should both be sleeping.
Annabeth pulls her blanket down and turns her body to face her roommate. “What’s there to be up about? He’s nice.”
“You’re always either with him or texting him. That’s not nothing.”
“You know, girls and guys can be just friends.”
“Sure they can. But you and Percy? That’s something else, believe me.”
“He’s just nice,” Annabeth insists. But Piper’s out like a light and now she’s just talking to herself.
Snowflakes dance to the ground like a company of disorganised ballerinas. As they pile against Annabeth’s dorm window, she feels a little bit colder, and sees the room get a little bit darker. The books and papers tower all around the room, and through her tired mind it’s like she’s lost in a forest of educational skyscrapers. She glances at her bed, complete with two sets of covers and two sets of blankets, the second set being Piper’s. Because it’s Thanksgiving holiday, and Annabeth is alone in an empty campus.
It still beats going home, even if she’d have a working heater there.
And besides, she isn’t technically alone.
Annabeth decides she isn’t going to get any more work done tonight, at least not without some kind of pick me up. With a sigh, she leaves her room to knock on the door of the one just across the hall. She hears some scuffling, but the door soon opens to reveal Percy. His typically already messy hair somehow looks even worse, sticking out in strange directions. Annabeth thinks it looks as if he’d fought off a bird trying to nest in it, and lost. The sea-green eyes she’s become so accustomed to are glassy, despite Percy’s attempts to rub the sleep out of them.
He’s groggy, but conscious enough that he still has his humour. “Annabeth Chase are you asking me out to dinner?”
She rolls her eyes. “Spoiler alert: during dinner I might be asking you to marry me.”
“Only might?” he pouts. “But I love you!”
And then she just loses it. Percy does, too, after a moment. With exams looming around the corner and running on low sleep, perhaps neither of them are really in their right minds.
“C’mon,” she says once she’s recovered herself. “Let’s celebrate the good old tradition of Orphan Thanksgiving.”
Once they’ve had dinner, they retire to their rooms. But neither of them feels like being alone anymore so Annabeth makes her way into Percy’s room. They sit on Percy’s bed, backs against the wall. Annabeth thinks he smells like the ocean, which made no sense, because they were nowhere near the coasts. A lot about Percy didn’t make sense, really. Mostly in good ways.
“What’re you doing on campus during Thanksgiving?” she asks. “The way you’ve talked about your mom — you should totally be with her right now.”
“She’s on her honeymoon,” he explains. “Just got remarried. She felt really bad about it actually. It’s just that all my life she’s done so much for me. I wanted her not to have to worry for once.”
“You’re a good guy, Percy. You really are.”
There’s a moment of heavy silence in the air before Percy asks his question.
“What about you? Why aren’t you with your family?”
“Let’s just say that the less time I spend with my stepmom, the better. The woman’s always hated me. I’m this… problem child infringing on her perfect family. And my dad’s never been on my side.” There’s a pause. “I tried to run away when I was seven.”
“Drop it, Percy. It’s not your fault. In fact… It’s kind of stupid but you’re kind of… I really…”
She trails off, not sure what she meant to say anymore. But she is sure that she wants to kiss Percy, and he might want to kiss her too.
So she does. And it’s everything a kiss should be.
But she remembers what Piper said, about how obviously Annabeth liked Percy, and the memory rubs her the wrong way.
Annabeth jerks back suddenly and scrambles off the bed. “I… I’m so sorry,” she mumbles, rushing out of the room.
“Annabeth!” he calls out, but Percy might as well be screaming into the void for all his trouble.
Even though they’re only three feet apart, Annabeth and Percy don’t speak to each other for the rest of that holiday.
When she returns, Piper knows something is wrong. But one look at Annabeth signals to her that some questions are better left alone.
They’d gotten ridiculously good at avoiding each other. Annabeth was too embarrassed to see Percy, and she figured her little stunt had probably scared him off.
She hears he got a girlfriend.
Annabeth tells herself it’s his right, because it is. But she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little hurt.
After a month she thinks it’s all blown over. Until the day Annabeth is coming back from a lecture, and Percy’s sitting in the hallway, sock on his doorknob.
“Well,” Percy says to Annabeth, who looks like a deer caught in headlights. “Doesn’t this seem familiar?”
“Only if I ask you in,” she replies.
She crosses her arms. “Your girlfriend won’t mind? Rachel, is it?”
Percy smiles. “Rachel’s not my girlfriend. Does that mean I can come in?”
There it is. Percy Jackson, not making sense. How could he be so nice? Why would he still want in?
Annabeth takes a deep breath. “Sure.”
He stands up, getting ready to follow her in. But Annabeth decides that their talk is long overdue, and she can’t even wait until they’re in her room.
“What happened over Thanksgiving, I’m sorry for that.”
“The running away part,” she says. “But definitely not the part just before it.”
He frowns. “So why did you run?” Percy demands.
“It’s something Piper said. I was just so scared this was going to be a thing; something that doesn’t last. And I’ve spent so much time running, I just want to build something permanent, y’know?”
He takes a moment to consider what she said.
“Annabeth I really, really like you. You’re crazy smart, doggedly determined, and you sort of look like a princess. And I guess what I’m trying to say is that I can’t promise that this is going to be permanent,” he admits. “But I can promise that I’ll try.”
When they kiss this time, Annabeth doesn’t run away.
It’s a snowy evening. Annabeth and Percy sit around the dinner table of a small Brooklyn apartment, one with the smell of cooked turkey in the air.
“I’m thankful for my family,” says Sally Jackson, looking around the table. “There’s really nothing like Thanksgiving with your loved ones.”
Percy stands as his mother takes her seat. “This year,” he begins, “I’m thankful for my mother who raised me, my stepfather who accepted me, and Annabeth. Every day you teach me something new, and every day I find myself falling more in love with you.” At this, he gets down on bended knee, and digs his jacket pocket for the small box. In the time it takes for him to get it out and open it, tears have formed in Annabeth’s eyes.
“I’m not one for big speeches, so I’m not going to try. I’m just going to tell you that I love you so much. Annabeth Chase, will you marry me?”
