The Perks of Being a Seaweed Brain
1. When he's eight years old he wins his school's swimming carnival. He ploughed through freestyle, aced breaststroke, netted himself victory for backstroke and butterfly, and cleared the field in every medley. On this day, every single person is on his side. It feels kind of cool, because usually they'd either be out to throttle him or would just pretend he didn't exist.
The next day, he lands himself detention and gets his final demerit point. He's expelled.
At least he gets to keep his trophy.
2. His mother's job at Sweet on America is awesome. One time, she comes home with her pockets full of blue jelly beans and sour worms. She gives them all to him, saying she's had enough already. Usually, the candy would disappear in an instant, but he preserves these, and two months later, when he's off at his new and hopefully improved boarding school, Gabe moves into his room. There is a very sticky surprise waiting on the desk chair.
Gabe is stuck there for a full half hour before Sally comes home and finds him helpless.
3. Camp is his new home. His cabin is totally wicked. The white-washed walls, comfy bunks and ocean views remind him of Montauk, and while that makes him sad, it makes him warm inside too. After his first quest, Annabeth comes knocking on his door and lets herself inside. The silence between them isn't awkward any more.
He cannot imagine never having met her. He thinks his life would've turned out very different.
4. He lies on the sand with his hands folded beneath his head and stares up at Zoë Nightshade in the sky. There's a smile on her lips, he decides, as if Artemis has preserved laughter in the stars. After a while, Annabeth joins him, then Grover. They lie together, not speaking, acute with loss but thankful they have each other.
He almost finds himself glad Annabeth was taken. It's made them so much closer than before.
5. Sometimes he misses Ogygia's summery shores. When he closes his eyes, Calypso's face is printed in his mind, and he falls asleep with the scent of moonlace filling him to the brim. He knows she saved his life, and he knows that one day, he will save hers.
He can't wait to see her smile when he sets her free.
6. Rachel Elizabeth Dare keeps him sane. His year is filled with monsters and war and frustrating daughters of Athena, but among all that chaos, Rachel, ironically, is the eye of the storm. He knows he can't survive without her. Sometimes her laughter is all he needs, and he finds himself thinking about her green-green eyes just as he drifts off to sleep. She can't make him smile in that special way only Annabeth can, but she makes him feel something new and altogether different.
When's he's with her, he sometimes forgets he isn't a mortal, and he wonders if that's such a bad thing.
7. He never thought he'd kiss such a beautiful girl. He never thought he'd kiss a girl, period. And he definitely never thought he'd kiss her underwater.
But, for once, Percy is glad to be wrong.
8. He wakes with a foul smell in his nose, and jolts into an upright position, gagging. Wolves prowl around him in an uneasy circle, and a rotting carcass lies at his feet. Ah, he thinks. That explains the smell.
They train him. They push him. They mould him in their image, and though he has a faint recollection of doing something like this once before - maybe more than once, actually - the thought is gone as soon as it came and he finds himself grasping at shadow. His reflexes sharpen, his voice turns gravely, and the magic sword he finds in his pocket fits him so perfectly in makes him uneasy.
He's training with Lupa alone one day when, inexplicably, a pair of grey eyes framed by princess curls appear in his mind. Annabeth, he thinks, and he knows that this is one memory that won't disappear.
He makes a list of everything he remembers. It is terrifyingly short.
My name is Percy Jackson.
I am a demigod.
I own a pen that turns into a sword. It has a long and tragic history, but I can't remember why.
I have a girlfriend. She is beautiful.
Her name is Annabeth.
9. A one way trip. A very hard fall.
He's holding her hand and she's crying and he maybe thinks that he's crying too. He feels like Alice down the rabbit hole, but he knows the place they're heading is the furthest from Wonderland he'll ever know. The thought terrifies him, but he's too busy looking at Annabeth to worry about it.
She is sunshine. She is spring. She is kisses in the lake and the most perfect he's ever felt.
And right then he knows that for her, Tartarus will be worth it. Anything would be.
10. There are blonde curls in his mouth and he spits them out softly, tasting her strawberry shampoo. Her hair is short now but just as enchanting. She will never stop looking like a princess.
The morning is cold and clear as he eases himself up in bed, conscious of Annabeth in his arms and not really anything else. He can hear someone singing loudly outside - judging by the off-key Mariah Carey ballad, he guesses it's Leo - and it makes him grin. There're the sounds of people sparring, screams from the Demeter cabin as they once again find their grass roof festooned with chocolate Easter bunnies - Travis and Connor will be long gone by now - and Chiron's gramophone playing some musty old fifties record that once made a flock of Stymphalian birds fly for their lives.
There are moments in life, Percy decides, that seem to last forever, and are remembered long after their owner has passed into Elysium. They're the ones that are held close to your heart, and maybe they make you cry, or laugh, or wonder how the world can be so beautiful.
He knows that this is one of those moments, and even though they've lost so much, even though his life as a half-blood has been nothing but trouble, he has loved every minute of it, and he wouldn't change it for anything. After all, being a Seaweed Brain does have its perks, he thinks as he drops a soft kiss on Annabeth's scarred lips and waits for her to wake so she can kiss him right back.
Author's Note: Please review. I love writing fluff for these two! [By the way, the idea of Leo singing is inspired by ExceedinglyPeculiarChick's story Baby Got Back. Read it.]