A/N: Hey! This is a new oneshot for Percy Jackson and the Olympians about various pairings.
The pairings are:
Percabeth (Percy/Annabeth)
Tratie (Travis Stoll/Katie Gardner)
Groviper (Grover Underwood/Juniper)
Leyna (Leo Valdez/Reyna)
Copper (Connor Stoll/Piper McLean)
Thalico (Thalia Grace/Nico)
Beckilena (Charles Beckendorf/Silena Beauregard)
and
Chris Rodriguez/Clarisse La Rue (I don't know if this one has a pairing name...)
So...yeah, hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. They belong to Rick Riordan. I also don't own the lyrics to Smile by Uncle Kracker, which are featured in this story. They belong to Uncle Kracker (who, by the way, is a very talented musician. I highly recommend listening to his song, Smile, while reading this story.)
SIDE NOTE: The Thalico part is loosely based on a Thalico story by Dream Out Loud 18 (previously Animal Charmer 11) called "Betrayal". I highly recommend you go read it! It's awesome!
Aaaannddd...BEGIN!
/*\*/*\
/You make me smile like the sun.../
There were few things in the world that Percy Jackson thought were truly beautiful. Most things (and people) were artificially beautiful; made beautiful with the help of a heavy layer of makeup, or with Photoshop. It seemed that nobody cared about natural beauty these days. Because there was absolutely nothing natural about the fake eyelashes the girls in the Aphrodite cabin adored.
Annabeth Chase was one of those few things (and people) Percy thought were truly beautiful. And not just on the outside. She was beautiful on the inside, too–and she proved it over and over again everyday. She proved this with her actions, not with eyeliner and cover-up.
All in all, she was probably- no, she was the most amazing person he had ever met. Because she didn't care if she was wearing jeans and an old hoodie and her blond hair was a tangled rat's nest. Because she was too smart for her own good. Because she made him smile.
Oh, and she could kick his butt. Which Percy knew made things so much easier with her parents.
/*\*/*\
/Fall out of bed.../
"Wake up, Stoll," Katie Gardner called into the Hermes cabin. She was standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip and an annoyed expression on her face. The faint spring breeze played with her hair, which was tied back in a ponytail so tight it looked like it probably hurt.
Travis Stoll rolled over in bed, grumbling something about five more minutes. Katie rolled her eyes.
"Travis, I swear, if you make me come over there, you're gonna regret it," she told him. He responded by burying his head under his pillow to block out the light from the sun.
"Fine," Katie muttered. "You asked for it."
Rather than walk over and drag him out of bed, though, she turned and marched away to the Poseidon cabin. Travis, hearing her receding footsteps, lifted his head and peered after her blearily. That was weird. Katie didn't usually give up when trying to make him do something.
He shrugged it off, though, and laid his head back on his pillow, drifting back to sleep.
That is, until Travis felt an icy cold rush all over his neck and down his shirt. He yelped and sat up, shaking his body violently to fend off his frosty attacker. He rolled right off of his bed, hitting the floor painfully. He groaned.
He heard the sound of quiet snickering and glanced up to see Katie almost falling over laughing while Percy gave him a sheepish grin. Travis narrowed his eyes.
"Why?" he demanded shakily, glaring at the two.
Katie gasped for breath, she was laughing so hard. "Thanks, Perce," she said.
"No problem." Percy shot Travis an apologetic shrug before walking away whistling with his hands in his pockets.
"You," Travis growled, standing up and shaking his wet hair so droplets of water flung all around him, "are going to pay."
"Good luck with that, Stoll," Katie smirked.
"Why, thank you." He offered her a small smile. "Er...nice one, by the way."
"Why, thank you."
/*\*/*\
/Sing like a bird, dizzy in my head.../
Juniper was sitting cross-legged by her tree, her head leaning against the trunk. She felt peaceful here, with the untrimmed grass tickling her legs and the sun gently illuminating her face as it filtered down through the branches of the trees surrounding her. Spring, she thought, was her favorite season of all.
Of course, it would be a lot better if Grover were there with her. But he was out searching for Percy, who had disappeared about two weeks ago. Juniper didn't even know where Grover was, right now. He didn't write to her nearly as often as he had promised to.
But he's busy, Juniper chided herself. He'll be back before you know it. As soon as Percy is found.
Feeling a bit cheered up by this, the dryad smiled and closed her eyes. Somewhere on a tree branch high above her, a bird tweeted out a long, melodious song in a high voice. Juniper found herself softly singing words to match the tune.
"/Even when you're gone...Somehow you come along, just like a flower poking through the sidewalk crack, and just like that...you steal away the rain and just like that.../"
/*\*/*\
/Spin like a record, crazy on a sunday night.../
Leo Valdez walked by the house of a certain Roman praetor, his hands jammed in his pockets. He glanced hopefully at the front steps, and a wide smile spread across his face when he spotted the brown-haired girl who was sitting on them.
"Reyna," Leo greeted, walking over to her and plopping down beside her.
"Valdez," Reyna returned. She offered him a small smile. "Taking another walk at midnight?"
"Waiting for me again?" Leo countered. Reyna shrugged, and in the dim light from a lantern hanging on her porch roof, he could see her throat redden. He grinned.
For a while, they sat in comfortable silence. Leo was vaguely aware of how close they were to each other, their elbows and knees touching. The contact made him feel strangely...tingly. In a good way.
Something about Reyna had always made him feel good. Maybe it was the way that sometimes she was annoyed with him, but when he did something right and made her smile, it was the best feeling in the world. Or how she could somehow make him feel like none of the bad things about him mattered - like she could only see the good things about him, anyway.
Leo felt Reyna shift a bit, wrapping her arms around her torso so she was hugging herself.
"So...we need something to talk about..." Reyna said after a while.
"Yeah..." Leo agreed.
He felt Reyna poke his arm. "Entertain me, Valdez."
Leo raised an eyebrow at her. She just grinned at him. He shrugged and sighed, standing up. He thought back to the days when he was with foster families and the kids were bored in the summer. He remembered one thing that always made them giggle.
Leo started spinning around as fast as he could. The world blurred before his eyes and his stomach churned but he could hear Reyna laughing just like his old foster siblings, so he continued.
After about a minute, he finally stopped and sank down onto the porch, his head still spinning.
"Entertained?" Leo demanded, looking at Reyna. Or at least, in Reyna's general direction. He was so dizzy it was hard to tell.
"Very," she said, leaning against him as she laughed. Leo sighed and leaned his head on hers. His head finally stopped spinning.
But the tingling was back.
/*\*/*\
/You make me dance like a fool/
Piper and Connor were sitting side-by-side on the edge of the lake, watching the water ripple when they attempted to skip stones on it (and failed). The sunset was fading on the horizon, and Connor knew they should probably go to their cabins before the harpies showed up, but he couldn't force himself to move. It was too nice, sitting here with Piper without any disturbances or loud brothers to intrude.
Piper hummed quietly under her breath; a tune Connor didn't recognize. But it sounded nice.
Without thinking, he stood, grabbing her hands and pulling her up with him.
"Connor?" Piper said.
Connor, keeping his hands in hers, gave her a crooked smile, and proceeded to spin around, pulling her with him in a circle.
"What the heck?" Piper asked, laughing as he led her in circles around the area surrounding the lake in a strange sort of dance.
"This is what I call the fun version of the waltz," Connor told her.
"You are such a dork," Piper informed him. He just smiled and slowed down, so that they were less jumping around and doing a more proper waltz.
"This is nice," Piper said after a while, laying her head on his shoulder.
"Agreed." Connor smiled into her hair.
/*\*/*\
/Forget how to breathe/
Nico glanced at Thalia, biting his lip. She was sitting up in a tree by the entrance to Camp Half-Blood, her eyes closed. He knew she was probably lost in her thoughts. He was slightly afraid about what those thoughts were.
Images of earlier that day flashed through his mind; Thalia glaring at him, shouting curses. Telling him he was an idiot and a traitor for not telling them about Percy.
Telling him she hated him.
He sighed and rested his chin on his hands.
How could she manage to take his breath away even when she was yelling at him?
/*\*/*\
/Shine like gold/
Even in death, Silena Beauregard was the most beautiful girl Charles Beckendorf had ever seen. ["Don't tell Mom I said this, Charlie, but beauty is only skin-deep."]
Even in death, her smile lit up whatever space she was in. ["I smile because you're there."]
Even in death, her laugh was the most infectious sound he had ever heard. ["I laugh because I'm happy, and I'm happy because I'm with you."]
Even in death, she managed to shine like gold. ["If I'm gold, then you're platinum."]
Even in death, she was the love of his life. ["I love you, too, Charlie."]
/*\*/*\
/Buzz like a bee/
Chris Rodriguez was happy. Delighted. Ecstatic. Euphoric. Basically, if a word meant happy, then that was how Chris was feeling right now. Because right now, he was sitting beside Clarisse La Rue, AKA, his girlfriend. He was almost always happy, delighted, ecstatic, and euphoric whenever he was with her.
She just had a way of making him smile - even when she was glaring at him, or rolling her eyes. Because he knew that while on the outside she was cold and uncaring, on the inside she was warmer than sunshine spilling across grass in summer.
...Okay, something was seriously wrong with him, now. He sounded like he was a Shakespeare wannabe. That was very bad.
But Clarisse had that effect on him.
Even now, as she went on about how annoying that Percy Jackson was and how ridiculous Chris's half-brothers, the Stolls, had been that day, he couldn't help but grin. Not even just because she didn't honestly mind that Percy had had the nerve to smile at her when she sneered at him; Chris was grinning because he had known that she didn't really mind. All of the (totally un-stalkerish) time he had spent studying her had paid off, because he now knew her better than she probably knew herself.
"Are you even listening to me?" Clarisse demanded. Chris realized that he had been spacing out, staring at her hair and the patterns the light from the fading sun cast on it. He gave her a sheepish look that explained for him. She rolled her eyes. "Chrissy, you have to attention span of a fruit fly, don'tcha?"
"Clary, you really know how to boost my self-esteem, don'tcha?" Chris countered.
"...I know you did not just call me 'Clary'."
Almost always, Chris felt happy, delighted, ecstatic, and euphoric around Clarisse. The rest of the time, however, he was running like hell were following him.
/*\*/*\
/Just the thought of you can drive me wild/
Connor had claimed he always knew it, had always expected it, and that it was only a matter of time, but Travis never really thought he would actually lose his mind. Or, if he ever had (for some insane reason) thought he would lose his mind, he always imagined that he would lose it for some noble and epic cause that would immortalize his name and let him forever be known as a hero who lost his mind for a good cause.
He never imagined he would lose his mind over a girl. And, if he ever had (for some even more insane reason) thought he would lose his mind over a girl, the girl he had imagined losing his mind over had certainly not been Katie Gardner.
And yet she was precisely the girl he was losing his mind over.
It had started with small things; worrying if his hair was a mess when he walked by her, or wondering if he really did have something in his teeth or if Connor was simply teasing him.
But then it had turned into him "researching" how to act around girls - which basically meant that for a week he had acted very aloof around Katie, tried to become pale, and became very interesting in baseball, all because the girls from the Aphrodite cabin had lent him their copies of Twilight.
That hadn't worked out so well, eventually ending with Katie asking why he had baby powder all over his face.
And, finally, it had turned into his heart racing and his hands becoming sweaty just at the thought of Katie. And, unfortunately almost everything made him think of her: every single flower he saw, every time he saw chocolate (which reminded him of her eyes when she smiled), and every time he heard a name that started with the letter K. Heck, even trying not to think about her made him think about her.
It was a vicious cycle.
But he didn't entirely hate it. Because if Travis Stoll was going to lose his mind over any girl, it might as well be Katie Gardner. At least she made him smile.
/*\*/*\
/And oh, you make me smile.../
Percy almost didn't dare believe his eyes when he, shielding his eyes with his hand from the glare of the sun, saw the glimmer of golden hair at the bow of the large ship as it approached New Rome. Every agonizing moment he had spent waiting for this one suddenly didn't matter anymore. Because she was here. His Annabeth was here.
His feet couldn't carry him fast enough as he abandoned Frank and Hazel and tore towards the ship, feeling the need to be as close to her as he could get. His mind was in hyperdrive, and it wasn't just the ADHD - it was the knowledge that Annabeth was right there, and that he would finally get to hold her close like he suddenly remembered doing, an image flashing through his mind. However, this memory was unneeded: he didn't need a memory of Annabeth, not when she was right here.
The blond girl peered down from the ship, her gray eyes scanning the ground until they rested on Percy, who was looking back up at her. For one instant, their eyes connected. And then a giant smile spread across her face as she called his name. He called hers back in reply.
Tears of overwhelming happiness sprang into her eyes. Finally. After all this time. He was finally here.
The ship took so long to dock that Annabeth was almost about to jump right off the edge, but it finally did. Annabeth was the first off, tripping down the ladder in her haste and scraping her knee, but she didn't feel the sting. She jumped the last three rungs, and had barely spun around when she was grabbed in a hug, Percy's arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her to him.
She put her arms around his neck. They stood there like that for a long while, ignoring the stares and smiles from everybody else. Nothing could touch them.
"I take it you remember me, then," Annabeth whispered finally, fighting back the lump in her throat.
"No, actually the Romans have taught me to just go around and hug everybody I see," Percy responded in a murmur. She pulled back and blinked at him for a moment before relaxing when she realized he was joking.
"I would never forget you, Wise Girl," he assured her.
Annabeth smiled.
/*\*/*\
A/N: CUE THE "AWWWWWS". =D
I really enjoyed writing this. It was tons of fun. A nice break from the angsty shtuff (*cough* "Worse Things Than Death" and "Care" *cough*) I've been publishing lately. I hope you enjoyed!
Nooooww...review? :D Oh, and tell me which of the mini-stories in here was your favorite. Mine was the first Tratie one.
Thanks!
- Hyper
