There's probably no better way to wake up than with a headache harboring enough force to render your eyes temporarily useless. Her dad would say something like, "Pain builds character" or "It's better than being dead." She likes to think so, at least.
Annabeth feels only the throbbing inside her skull and nothing else; she can't force her eyelids to peel open and let in the light of dawn, no matter how insistent her internal clock is about urging her awake. (Early riser. She's never been able to sleep later than the time it takes for morning sunlight to swallow the sky.)
With a ragged sigh, she throws both of her arms over her head and groans, tucking into a ball to delay the inevitability of getting up and stretching her curiously sore limbs. She wonders for a moment why her body feels so heavy, why her joints ache like lego bricks slammed into place.
Her sheets. She pauses, stuffing her nose into the cotton material. They smell… different.
It isn't clear how in the world she's able to pick up on the subtle shift, but as she opens her lungs in a generous breath, she isn't met with the scent of her lemon shampoo she distinctly knows her pillows to smell of—the same one she's used since before she can remember. Instead, she inhales a lungful of clean cotton and a briny breeze. The smell isn't totally unpleasant, if at all, just a little unnerving. Confused, she wonders if Deb washed her sheets before she got home last night and she'd been too tired after her trainwreck of a volleyball match to realize the unfamiliar fragrance.
It takes exceptional effort to tear her eyes open in greeting to the rising world, and she reasons her achey flesh the result of her utter destruction by the rival volleyball team last night. It's what makes the most sense, although she can't remember a time she was this sore from a game.
If she'd known her body had catapulted almost two decades into the future in the timespan of just one night, her morning might have gone slightly smoother. But that's just her guess anyway.
Just as she's trying to place her surroundings—her bedroom is darker than she's used to, the window letting in small fragments of light is in a different spot than she knows it to be—a thick arm curls around her middle, tugging her backward. She yelps.
"Don't wake up yet. Let's snuggle."
The grumble is male and thick with sleep. Warm, naked skin presses against her back and hairy legs tangle with hers under the covers. Immediately, she throws the arm off of her in a panic, jumping out of her bed in the next second—except it's not her bed. This isn't her room. The man sitting in the rumpled queen sized bed in front of her looks alarmed, a lot more awake than he sounded just moments ago, and a little dumbfounded. His hands are up in surrender and his eyes are wide.
"Sorry, but that usually works on you." He blinks his eyes hard, trying to clear the sleep from his vision. The sleep-softened features of his face are starting to look somewhat… familiar as her eyes adjust to the limited lighting. "I was under the impression that you liked snuggling as much as I do." He says it like a joke, but when she doesn't laugh, he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, a mannerism she instantly recognizes and then it hits her that—
"Why are you so old?"
"Uh," he stutters, his raised arms falling. It's so bizarre, seeing him this way. Yesterday she rode the bus to school with him and he was thirteen, not two-hundred-and-old. Well, realistically, somewhere around late-twenties, early thirties. But, same thing. "I'm still a month younger than you, last time I checked? Are you feeling o—"
In that moment, she feels a draft against her legs, courtesy of a rotating floor fan beside the bed. She looks down to see her bare skin, just under the cover of a too-big FDNY t-shirt. But that's all she's wearing. She's about to scream, maybe, when he starts to leave the bed. The blanket falls from his waist, revealing miles of tan, smooth skin without pause for clothing. Because he's naked. Adult, hot Percy Jackson is naked and trying to snuggle her and she thinks she might have gotten knocked out at last night's game and now she's hallucinating.
Her eyes shoot upward to avoid everything in front of her as Percy moves closer. She scrambles back. "Oh my god. Where are your clothes? Why are you naked? Get that thing away from me."
Percy's eyebrows shoot up. "You should know, seeing as you stole my shirt last night." He moves his hand in her direction and she slaps it back. "Let me feel your forehead," he admonishes with an eye roll. "You're acting funny."
"What? And you're going to take care of me?" Her voice breaks. "You don't find this weird at all?" Her heart is hammering wildly and she knows she might be acting a little crazy, but he's the one who's pretending like everything's fine. Like there isn't a significantly larger pair of boobs on her chest than yesterday. Like he isn't standing in front of her brandishing a grown man's you-know-what in full glory.
"I'm your husband, it's kind of my job to take care of you." Again, he reaches for her forehead only to be slapped away again. "Would you stop doing that? I need to make sure you're not feverish."
"Husband?" She chokes. Her eyes snap down to his left hand, seeing a glint of gold and actively ignoring it. "You're the feverish one here, Percy. I think I'd know if I got married—"
It's… different. Seeing the delicate band sitting on her own hand. A small diamond pressed into the center. She feels dizzy.
"Annabeth, what is going on with you?" Now, he looks worried. Like actually, seriously worried. His arms are thicker, and he's got maybe fifty pounds on her, but she bets she could put up a decent fight if he tried to drag her to the nearest psych ward.
"Can you just, like, put some pants on before you ask me all these questions?"
"All these questions…" he mutters under his breath disbelievingly, looking around quickly until he spots a pair of sweatpants. He stumbles a little as he drags them up his legs. "Are you caffeine deprived? Do you need coffee?"
"Coffee? Since when have I drunk coffee?"
He doesn't even say anything. He just stares at her.
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
"No!" she yells, scrambling back again. "Something weird is going on! Can't you tell?"
"Tell what?" he cries. "I just wanted to stay in bed a couple more minutes to snuggle and suddenly you're afraid of my penis and yelling at me about the falsity of our marriage!"
"We're not married, Percy, we're thirteen, for pete's sake!"
"Did you just say thirteen? Did I hear that right? Annabeth, we are thirty years old. We've been married for three years, together for eight."
Her head swims. "You're wrong. We went to school yesterday. I had my match against Tribeca. You skipped gym class to run home and grab my lucky hair tie. Our team still got crushed and now all of my bones hurt."
"Annabeth," Percy says, quietly this time, and it actually scares her. "I'm really concerned right now."
"You have to believe me!" Frustrated tears rush to her eyes, and her whole body feels hot. She feels the beginning of a too familiar episode setting in. "Maybe we really are thirty years old, but I'm telling you the truth, I don't remember a second of it!"
Once she starts gasping for breath, Percy rushes over, catching her before she falls. It's practiced, as if he knows the drill by now. "Hey, hey. Breathe, Annabeth. C'mon, I need you to breathe for me. Count to ten."
She follows his instructions, sucking air deep into her lungs and letting it out slowly. He soothes her in a familiarity different from what she expected. He's done this with her before.
She's settled down when he lowers them to the floor, letting his head fall into his hands. "Okay, assuming I'm not still dreaming and you're actually thirteen years old right now, what are we going to do? How did this happen?"
"I don't know," she whispers, feeling hot tears track down her cheeks. If someone had told her yesterday that this was her future—the life ahead of her full of nothing but loving and snuggling Percy Jackson, she's sure she would have been beyond thrilled. She's had a crush on him since puberty kicked in and she realized her best friend of forever was a boy. But she didn't want it like this. She didn't want it so soon. She wanted to be able to live it on her own.
His fingers wipe away the wetness from her cheeks, trailing his thumb over her chin to lift her face up. He gives her this smile that says everything she needs to hear in that moment, letting his head fall onto her shoulder like she's used to, and it's what gives her strength. He's always done this, and that's a small comfort at a time like this, where everything has moved before she had time to adjust her lenses. But her Percy is still inside him, looking different, but making his presence felt in the same way.
"If anyone can fix this, Annabeth, it's us. We're not giving up yet."
And against all odds, she believes him.
i've been "writing" this for over a year. i'm so sorry to the poor anon who requested it back when pjowriters first started. if i ever meet you, i'll buy you a slice of pizza