What Goes Unsaid
Disclaimor: I don't own Percy Jackson and The Olympians nor any of it's characters.
Annabeth tries to think this through. She really does. But it's difficult to concentrate, to discern her feelings or her thoughts when he's screaming at her. His voice too is loud, his words unrepentantly poisonous. His face is angry red and suddenly, his size, which always brought her comfort, appears threatening rather than safe.
How could it not? After all, she's painfully aware of every wiry muscle, every defined ab, and of all the strength he hides in that body. She's personally acquaintance with it all. The knowledge makes her take a step back. Unfortunately, it doesn't discourage her from screaming right back at him, though.
A part of her hopes it would.
Percy Jackson is many things, but he isn't fierce nor particularly cruel. In rare instances where Percy flashes an unknown darker nature... they'd be both weary and dirty, beyond exhausted and covered grotesquely in monster dust. During those ordeals, her boyfriend transformed into a warrior. Making honour to his name, staying true to his godly heritage. He transformed into everyone's Percy, everyone's saviour. Those were dark times.
(Annabeth hates sharing. The world could go screw itself for all she cares.)
That's why she adored peace, because no one needed a battle-hardened, invincible saviour. No one needed a leader or a hero. So Percy didn't have to be one.
(Fatal flaw or no. And wasn't that a hell condemning reason?)
He could just be hers. Her friend, her boyfriend, her lover.
He could be her Percy. A bit fallible and rough around the edges, surprisingly shy yet deviously adventurous. Charming her with a distinctly corny sense of humour, and unchanging loving stare. A bit dense and a bit dull, but always deceitfully gentle. Brash, but certainly courageous.
For her, he was everything. He's a partner. He's a friend. He's her hero. He's the ocean and the sea breeze and the sun on her skin. The inherent warm brings memories of heat to the forefront of her mind. Despite the wholly dreadful circumstance, Annnabeth's mind descends into the gutter.
She thinks of his hands on her hips, on her over him.
She thinks of his mouth on her neck and his breath on her lips and…
Another insult flies from that same trap.
She doesn't sigh. Ignoring how much she wants to. Instead, grey eyes thunder, clouded and stormy by rage. A lightning fast comeback spouts like venom from her wily lips. She's merciless. But she's aiming her viperous words without any truthful intent. Like a cobra, she doesn't think to harm, to blind, to pain. She acts out of instinct, to shield and protect herself. Offence is the best defence, or so some idiot said.
She's mad. She's hurt. She's sick. She's been for months.
(Only her Athenian legacy keep her away from pills. She hasn't fallen that far. Yet)
Above all that, Annabeth's tired. Weary, drained, exasperated, jaded, overtaxed, dead on her feet... From the fighting, the screaming, the turbulent relationship and the unending chaos. Lately, her life's been tortuous, if not downright hellish. That's putting it mildly. It's calling a Tsunami a wave, intrinsically true yet wholly inaccurate. They're almost too differing to compare.
The unending debacle between them has become an eternal, cyclical affair of doom. Like quicksand, the more they struggle the faster they sank. Shouts brought more shouts. Fights brought more fights. Tears brought more tears.
And oh, how she detested crying.
The altercations, no matter their nature, only managed to encourage the growing chasm between them. The one which grows with such unearthly speed that in a blink, the growing distance has proven suicidal to overcome. Their desperate attempts at bridge making are rocky and unsuccessful, they require cooperation after all. And they both suck at teamwork.
(Since when, though? Architectural skills are failing her. Her leadership skills are MIA too.)
The stalemate is a serious blow to her pride, it's a fatal blow to her being. Percy was hers. Her saviour. Her brother. Her boyfriend. Her lover. Hers. The continuos waive from peace makes her feel like she's not enough, and that he's not trying enough.
Because her enough, isn't his enough.
And simply enough isn't enough.
Not anymore.
She's proud of many thing, her hamartia dictates so. But among them, her communication skills are among the highest she values. They have saved her as many times as her truth daggers has done. These same skills, which would've been pretty darn convenient now, have rusted so rapidly and so spectacularly that it seems fated. Where's the years of practicing rhetoric? The experience of speaking in front of crowds? Her fabled silver tongue?
Gone.
The most distress causing thought is that she'd lie if she said she hadn't predicted this whole fall out.
(No traumatic visit to the Attic needed. She's almost proud.)
Annabeth blames it on him though.
She has tried to understand. In a very accurate show of his legendary stubbornness, Percy doesn't even listen! How can they talk or explain or understand, when he doesn't even sit down long enough to breath? He has no intention of meeting her halfway. Oh. But she has to hear him. How could she not? He's quiet vociferous in his opinions. Opinions equating irrational arguments that only add fuel to the fire.
They're going in circles and they both know it. They've been skirting around the lying, the omissions, the fighting. Dancing dangerously close yet painfully far from the true issue (which she hasn't define just yet). Fruitlessly ignoring the raging secrets and fading feelings that are left without acknowledgement.
Neither of them really wants to fight. They're both too weary, too emotionally invested to continued this charade... but they just don't seem able to make up. Not truly. Only, half-assed make-up's that crumbled like sand castles during full tide. This spells for doom. That frightens them, lacing them paralysed and drifting in a sea of doubts. Drowning, from a lack of courage to make things right. Annabeth wants to breath, to fight, to anything but...
She's so, so tired.
And Percy doesn't help.
He obviously thinks their impeding conversation is more likely to end in everything crashing and burning around them. In they letting things just… go. Maybe for good. Maybe not. He fears that a conversation, that pending conversation, which will either save them or curse them will end them. Leaving them both with a corrosive hollowness that eats them away.
A part of her wonders if it isn't such already. She understands and she knows, because she has the same nightmares he does.
But can they turn their backs on the only solution? Ignore the sole way to amend things… because of fear? Can she will herself to ignore all issues? Convince herself things are fine, when they're clearly not? Loose herself in petty words and touching hugs?
It's so easy, though, when he whispers her name in the dead of the night, lulling her to sleep with sweet nothings that work only in the foggy afterglow of sex. His arms holding her tight, never gently but possessively as if fearing she'd be taken away. Dreading that she'll walk away. She knows she should.
(Makeup sex is not the answer, despite it's higher success rate over sensible debates.)
It's so easy to ignore reality when he's kissing her and she's kissing him; when she's moaning his name, as he's biting her. Her lips, her tights; her shoulder, her jaw. Everything he can see, everything he can reach.
She ignores the truth briefly, when his ministrations drive her mad. When his touch lights her on fire. She's warm, hot, burning… He's teasing and she writhes. She moans and he laughs and they kiss and… then it all builds up, filling her inside…
She looses sight of the issues, of him, of her and there's only them and the racks of pleasure riding down her spin. Her mind only processing the waves of freaking release curling on her toes and a long, husky whispering of his name that turns from coherent mumblings to a deep, wanting moan that escapes her mouth to join his groan.
It's easy to set it aside from then to well into the night, until she collapses. Overloaded and shaking and pleased. Feeling kinky and sexy, while his whispers make her feel beautiful and tainted, dirty and perfect. How could any problems hold her attention then? The logic behind tells her everything she needs to know. He does it on purpose. Using that exotic stare to throw her off, touching and plucking and sucking; to distract her so, making her feel things no one has before. It works… but not for long.
Because the truth is, she can't. She can't ignore it, this, them... Wether it is her lineage, or her flaw or her, just her. Without fail, the next morning, as Percy sleeps soundly dreaming of better days; her brain will unfog and she'll know that sometimes love
(Or sex)
isn't enough. Why? Because enough isn't enough.
The worst of it all? The commonness of it, it's such a painfully mundane situation. Couples fight. That's the truth. And when the stakes are clashing, struggling between the complementary importance of their prides against their relationship… They are both expecting the other to succumb.
And in the end, it wasn't the gods, or the fates or the monsters, it wasn't some obscure entities' scheming or an enemy's revenge, it wasn't any of the undefeatable odds they'd face that managed to split them apart. To sever the red string, to divided their souls. It had been angst. It had been drama. It had been the wrong words at the wrong time.
(And though never of them would admit it. It'd been too much damn pride.)
Annabeth had counted on Percy loving her enough, needing her enough….
But hadn't she already come to terms with how enough is not enough?
(She'd already cleared that. A truly cyclical affair of doom.)
She abhors this roller coaster of feelings. Despite the ghastly ride, the imminent end she can see approaching is so much more horrifying, she finds herself hoping the ride'll last forever. It won't last, though. Neither the ride nor their feelings. But oh, how Annabeth wishes it would.
(They say ignorance is bliss, but Annabeth isn't an ignorant woman. She could see beyond. She could chose bad before worse. Randomness is often misunderstood genius some said. Ignorants or another brand of genius may call it PMS. Annabeth is not on her period, though.)
She can foresee the final loop coming. Like a guillotine whizzing throw the air, picking up speed to severe them apart forever, leaving them missing a vital piece of themselves. She cannot see another way and that's the most tragic part of all. That she's almost eager of their execution. She's expecting freedom from where there's only death.
(Maybe she's finally off her rock or maybe this is a new brand of genius. Probably not.)
But, she's not too far gone. They've been miserable. Both walking on eggshells, both worried, and scared of the same thing. One can discern why she's almost masochistically eager for then end. They're like enemies. Distrustful, selfish, prideful… They're fighting against each other in war, while they're holding the same goal. All the angst and the stress and the worrying and the hurt… It's going to kill them.
And a part of Annabeth wants it to kill them.
Not because she's given up, mind you. But because maybe a desperate situation will help them. Because, if they were to be staring into each other's eyes, with death breathing down their necks, it would be so easy to confess. Everything. To let go of their pride, of their fears, and realize there's nothing more important than each other. Because she knows it is that way. Nothing happens.
(She suspects its her desperate wishing that keeps all monster far away. Because gods were selfish and the Fates were all jealous bitches. And damn Mr. D to Tartarus, why couldn't they go on a quest?)
So with no imminent physical danger in sight, her mouth struggles and swallows the words. She knows what she wants to say. Why is she unable to say it? She already knows things aren't going to be the same. There is no climax to this story that will push them beyond their limits, and Annabeth's at her limit.
Because neither of them is trying to jump of a bridge, or has suffer an accident, or is suddenly terminally ill. Nor at sword point or about to be devour by a beast from ancient tales. That reprehensible and random occurrences are strictly reserved for movies and books. Circumstances in which the author has to figure out a way to make the characters love each other again. Where breaking it up isn't an option.
But this is real life. And sometimes fairytales are short, and there's no happy ever after. So with rapidly dulling grey eyes, she looks into sea green.
And even with this end. They are still them, and they will always will be. So there is no need for long winded speeches, there isn't even a need of words. It's in the silence that follows in which she knows, in which he knows what just took place.
It's in their stances, in the drop of their shoulders. It's in their watering eyes and their paling pallors. It's in their panting breaths and gasping lungs. It's in all the words choking their throats. Its in the monster months raging in their bellies and the knuckles white with rage.
It's nowhere and it's everywhere.
In their eyes they see, in their hearts they feel and in their souls they know:
It's over. They're done.
I hope you enjoyed it!
If you did be sure to check out my other ongoing fanfic Ripples Over The Moon and review of course.