AN: This wasn't the one-shot I was supposed to write today, but I guess this'll have to do. Happy (canon) birthday, Annabeth Chase. She'd be twenty-three today (she and Percy were born in 1992.) Fun fact: Last year Rick said that they were born in 1993, but I think he changed it since Annabeth is supposed to be seventeen (like she is in The House of Hades and Blood of Olympus) in The Sword of Summer.
Another fun fact: Annabeth spent her seventeenth birthday in Tartarus. I hope it fell on the time they spent with Damasen in the hut.
Another fun fact: Annabeth is a month older than Percy. *sarcastic gasp* I know, right? A girl can actually be older than the boy she's dating? What kind of world are we living in? (That was to you, all those people that make Annabeth a year younger than Percy in their stories.)
Percy sits on the edge of the ship, staring out onto the ocean, and contemplates the day.
He and Leo had been pulling the morning shift, letting Piper and Frank grab some grub. He could hear Annabeth fumbling around the engine room–metal shifting against metal, large things thumping on the ground, air hissing from the bronze pipes–and Hazel moaning in her room from the heaving of the ship. Jason and Coach Hedge had still been asleep from staying up until three in the morning before Frank and Piper relieved them.
Leo had shouted in alarm, telling Percy to draw his weapon because sonar had picked up on something. The son of Hephaestus hit the alarm just as a giant squid monster (compliments of Keto) surfaced beside the ship, shoving the Argo II aside with the wave it created.
Annabeth and Jason were the first ones up. Jason wore nothing but a pair of sweatpants, and his hair was sticking out in odd directions, while Annabeth looked she had gotten in a fight with one of the engines, grease smeared here and there and a chunk of her CHB shirt missing. She was armed with one of Leo's hammers and a Celestial bronze shield they had yet to attach to the Argo II.
Still, the pair charged. They attacked the monster like some sort of blond Greek/Roman fighting machine. One of them distracted while the other lashed out; graceful, like a planned dance. They passed the shield back and forth.
"Woah," Leo muttered, and woah was right.
The final blow was perfectly coordinated. Jason had had the shield, deflecting one of the squid's tentacles, the others reaching for him. Annabeth saw an opening and charged through. She made it to the end of the ship, and he thrusted out his sword-gripping arm toward her, using the winds to propel her jump. She did a front flip mid-air before bringing her hammer down on the squid's eye. It crumbled to dust under her feet, but Jason flew down and grabbed her before she hit the water.
Percy's proud of them; he really is. But…the ocean is supposed to be his turf, not Annabeth's, or Leo's, or Hazel's, and especially not Jason's.
But, alas, being at their respective camps for as long as Annabeth and Jason have has made them pretty awesome and deadly, and then together? That's a whole other universe of combat mastery. They don't need Percy or anyone else to save the world.
They'd probably make perfect blond warrior babies, Percy thinks bitterly, but then stops that train of thought. He's mad at himself, not his girlfriend or his bro. He could never be mad at Annabeth or Jason. Especially not Annabeth.
"Hey," says Annabeth, and he jumps because he hadn't heard her come up.
Another thing Annabeth and Jason had been trained in that he could never do: Soundless ninja walking.
"Sorry." She grins at him sheepishly, not asking before she plops down beside him. He stares at her. She's had time to clean up after the squid attack–the time being night now–wearing a new pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt; a blue one that she'd stolen from him a long time ago. She cleaned most of the grease off of herself, but there's still some freckled in her hair.
She sets her arm between them, palm upward. He immediately accepts her invitation and twines their fingers together, running his thumb over her knuckles. She gives a small, warm smile at the sight, and his heart melts a little.
"You okay?" she asks, squeezing his hand, and of course she'd pick up on his sour mood.
"Yeah," he says, not wanting to worry her. She's already the leader of this quest, carrying all of them on her shoulders. She doesn't need the extra weight of his problems piled on there. "Just…you know. Stuff."
Her head drops on his shoulder, before she shifts so that her body is facing towards him. She digs her chin into him and he cranes his neck to look at her. They're so close that their noses press up against each other and they're inhaling each other's air. His head spins because her breath smells like olives.
"You know," she starts, bringing her free hand to rake through his hair, "that I need you, right, Percy?"
Dammit. She can read him like a book. "I need you, too, Annabeth," he mumbles, a little drunk off of her.
She shakes her head. "That's not what I'm asking, Love," she states, tugging at his hair in that soft way he loves. "Do you know that I need you?"
Percy doesn't answer, because, really? Does she need him?
She sighs, removing herself from him and standing up. She slips her fingers out of his just to offer him her hand again. "Dance with me?" she requests softly.
"Here? Right now?" he asks. She nods. "Why?"
"Because why not?" she replies. His eyes go to where Jason is steering the ship. "Don't you trust me?" she whispers, and that immediately directs his attention back to her. He takes her hand and stands up.
They get into position. His hand rests on her hip, while the warmth from her palm bleeds through his shirt into the skin of his shoulder. Their other hands are clasped together. He slowly leads them into a waltz.
Annabeth raises an eyebrow at him. "Since when do you know how to waltz?"
"Since Paul made me watch Dancing with the Stars with him," he admits in a whisper, leaning in close, like it's a secret. "It's a guilty pleasure of his and he doesn't want Mom to know about it, since she absolutely despises the host."
She laughs, and then she's taking the lead for the next minute before returning the reins to Percy. It's almost exactly like how she and Jason handed the shield back and forth, but this…this is more intimate. Percy likes it. A lot.
"What? No music?" he jokingly asks when she leads again.
"No," she says. "But you're free to hum if you want to get creative."
So he does. He starts up a tune, probably off-key because he hasn't heard the song in two and a half years.
"What are you humming?" she questions, leading him backwards.
"The song we first danced to," he answers simply. "Why Don't You Kiss Her, by Jesse McCartney. Grover picked it. Back in Westover Hall." He hears her breath hitch, and she stops the waltz. When he glances at her to see what's wrong, she's staring at him with swirling gray eyes like he's the center of her universe. The heated gaze makes him blush and takes his breath away.
"I-I forgot the song," she says, breathless. It's hard to tell in the dim lighting, but he thinks a blush is crawling up her neck, too. "But you…remembered. Why?"
"Because you're important to me," he says earnestly.
The hand on his shoulder slides up to cup the back of his head. She kisses him, immediately sucking his bottom lip into her mouth, and he moans against her lips. He keeps their hands twined together and runs his hand over her back. He rakes his fingernails over the clothing on her stomach, feeling taunt abs contract and flex under his fingertips.
He pulls back first (they've studied many, many times that Annabeth can hold her breath longer than he can), setting his forehead on hers. She lets him catch his breath, panting a little herself.
"Spin me?" she requests lightly after he's not breathing like a cow.
"Of course," he returns. They take a teeny step back and he brings her arm over her head. Percy raises his eyebrows before spinner her, telling her, "I may be able to waltz, but I can't spin you correctly."
"Well, Seaweed Brain," she says, a chuckle to her voice, "show me how you do it, and then I'll show you how to do it right."
He laughs, bringing her arm around her. He ends up tripping her over his feet.
"Here." She shifts their positions, so that she's holding his arm above his head. "Like this." And then of course she spins him perfectly, because that's what she is to him; perfect.
He tries again, and again, and again, before he gives up and leaves the spinning to Annabeth. He shakes his head, smiling goofily as he stares at her. "How can you always cheer me up?"
"Well," she says, encouraging him at bend his arm so that she can spin him again, "blue food would have worked better, but I didn't have any of that, so I guess I'm second choice."
He can't believe his ears. There's a sad sincerity to her voice, reminding him of her sixteenth birthday–a month before his–when she admitted that she believed she wasn't going to make it through the Titan War.
She's just as insecure as he is?
Planting his feet, he stops their dancing. He cups both of her hands in his, hugging them to his chest, right over his heart, forcing her to hold eye contact with him.
"You are always the best," he starts earnestly, pouring his soul over and over against into each word that follows. "Nothing in the world is as good as you. Not even the ocean. Not even blue food."
Annabeth's heart stutters in her chest at his words, and butterflies explode in her stomach. She can't do anything but stare at him for a long moment, taking everything in; from his sparkling sea green eyes to the stain on his right sleeve. Something about him makes her want to pick up on every little detail and store it away into her memory forever.
Then, the urge to smile pulls at her cheek muscles, and she buries her face into his shoulder. She mumbles out, "Love you, too," and wonders how she got so lucky.
He sets his chin on the top of her head, and they start to sway at the same time. There's no need for excessive dancing or kissing or words. They just stand there, offering whatever pieces of their hearts they had yet to give to each other.
Warm and safe isn't a feeling Annabeth feels whenever she's out of Camp Half-Blood, and sometimes even camp is a cruel and cold place, but never Percy. He's always earnest and protective, calm and welcoming, and–most importantly–caring and loving with her.
Screw what she said in the stables; Percy Jackson is her home, not Camp Half-Blood.
He yawns something that he can both hear and feel, from the shifting of his jaw and the rumble of his chest. She grins stupidly again.
"Tired?" she asks.
"What? No." He yawns and slumps further into her. "'M perfectly awake."
"Sure you are." She pulls back, yawning a little herself. He gives her a smug smile. "Okay, so maybe I need to head off to bed, too."
He tugs her close again and buries his face in her curls. "Yeah. You should start agreeing with your body and not stay up for three days at a time."
Rolling her eyes, she shoves lightly at his chest. "Well, then, you should allow me to get into an actual bed."
He yawns again before letting go. He allows her to take his hand and lead him down the stairs, into his room. He falls face-first onto his bed, sighing and groaning at the same time.
"Dork," she says, an affectionate smile pulling at her lips as she leans against his door frame.
"But I'm your dork, nerd," he mumbles into the pillows.
"But I'm your nerd, Seaweed Brain," she returns, and it's true. She's his, and he's hers, one-hundred percent.
Percy flips over on his stomach, staring at her, beckoning her over with his eyes. She walks over to press a kiss to his forehead before crouching at the foot of his bed. She tenderly slides off his shoes and socks.
"You don't have to do that," he says.
"But I want to," she replies. She places his shoes down and instinctively throws his socks to the right corner of the room, knowing about his weird habit of piling his dirty clothes in the right-hand corner next to the door. She snatches up a pair of sweatpants and goes over to his bed again. Her fingers wrap around his belt loops, and she whispers, "May I?"
Even though she can't entirely see him in the dim lighting, Annabeth knows he's blushing. "S-sure," he stutters. He lifts up his hips to provide her better access. She tugs off his jeans and slips on the sweatpants.
"There." She pats his hip and gives him a smile, then turns on her heel to walk to the door.
She doesn't get far. His arm shoots out and snakes around her waist, causing her to fall on top of him.
"Percy," she mumbles into his chest. She pushes herself up on her elbow and stares at his earnest eyes.
"Sleep in here tonight?" he whispers, his voice filled with pure intentions. Her heart melts a little.
But she still says, "No, Percy. I can't. Hedge will blow a gasket if I sleep here."
He smiles at her, a little mischievously. "Since when do you listen to Coach Hedge?" he asks, a glint to his eye. "Really. You're the only one that gets to call him Hedge or Gleeson without him threatening you with a bat."
She glares at him. He smiles back. That gorgeous, trouble-maker smile that she fell in love with. It chips away at her defense bit by bit.
"Fine," she sighs, letting her head drop onto his chest.
"Yay!" he says, like they're twelve again. "Sleepover!"
Then he's slipping out from under her. She cranes her neck to look at him, confused, until she feels his fingers tugging at her shoelaces. He tugs them off, dropping them next to his, but leaves her socks alone, knowing that she likes to sleep with them on. He doesn't get off the bed to find sweatpants, instead opting for fumbling around the floor until he grabs a pair.
His fingers shake as the tips slide under her belt. "M-m-may I?" he asks, blushing and stuttering. She nods and lifts her hips up off the bed. He fumbles with her belt for a moment, before he finally unbuckles it and tugs off her jeans, quickly replacing them with a pair of blue sweatpants.
He crawls up his bed, plopping down next to her. She wraps an arm around his torso–right under his arm–and pulls herself to him, settling her head on his chest so she can hear the soothing rhythm of his heartbeat. He brings his legs in and snakes an arm around her waist, tucking her to his chest.
Their breathing slows down as the moment does. She traces tiny patters on his chest, all of waves and seashells.
"You make me feel safe, you know?" she blurts. "Like, there's not a lot of places for demigods to feel safe and protected, but you…make me feel that way. Safe and protected. Whenever I'm around you, and especially when you're holding me."
Her cheeks burn, because–even though she's hopelessly in love with this boy–she just spilled her heart out to him, and she doesn't think she'll ever get used to it after all of her childhood forcing her to keep her emotions in. She wants to learn, though. How to spill her every emotion to him, since he always does to her.
"I feel safe when I'm with you, too," he mumbles, and presses a kiss to her hair. "I love you, Annabeth."
"Love you, too, Seaweed Brain."
"I need you."
"I need you, too…"
She lets her voice trail off, continuing her tracing on his shirt.
Annabeth doesn't fall asleep for a while; busy memorizing his heartbeat, the way the fabric of his t-shirt shifts against his skin, the comforting feeling of his torso rising and falling with every breath…the swelling of love in her chest.
She feels him twirling her hair around his finger, and has a feeling that he's doing the same thing.
AN: Did I make your teeth rot out with all that fluff?
This was not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. If there are any errors, please inform me so I may fix them.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson. I cry about it sometimes. The title was borrowed from Ingrid Michaelson's song Home.
Constructive criticism welcome, and reviews FEED MY DEMONIC POWERS! BWA HA HA!