'Nico, whenever we go on field trips from Camp Half-Blood, you always sit in front of me, behind me, or across me, but never next to me. Why?' Percy was kinda hurt.
Nico's cheeks darkened imperceptibly. Only Jason could tell.
'Uh...Well, you always sit with Annabeth, right?' Nico said the word 'Annabeth' with a tinge of sadness, which, again, only Jason noticed.
'Yeah, but', Percy retaliated, 'yesterday, she was gossiping with some Aphrodite cabin members. I CANNOT for the life of me imagine WHY. So the seat was free'
FLASHBACK TO THE DAY BEFORE
'Hi hi Annabeth!' Lacey was bouncy and cheerful. She and Annabeth got along unnaturally well. Drew groaned. She didn't want to be here, but Lacey dragged her to this seat. Besides, Annabeth was going to tell them about her relationship with Percy, and Drew could NOT resist any sort of gossip, especially if it was about the Seven (and Nico.)
'I think...' and here Annabeth lost some of her tough, positive spirit,' that Percy doesn't really love me that much anymore.'
'WHAAAAAAT? NO!' Lacey exclaimed, shocked.
'I mean, before, he spent every waking moment with me, but now...I feel neglected.'
Lacey was going to say something, but Drew interrupted.
'Of course, honey' she said with dripping...well, oozing, sarcasm. 'I mean, Seacheeks (a pun on sweet cheeks and also Percy's official (?) Aphrodite matchmaking name) and you were rescued from that dangerous quest in Tartarsauce...'
'Tartarus...' Lacey nudged Drew.
'WHATEVER!' Drew yelled, exasperated. 'ANYWAY, now that you get to spend a lot of time together without the risk of, like, accidentally dying, maybe the minutes have lost their preciousness.'
'Well...' Annabeth felt a little hopeless. 'What do I do?'
'You gotta be UPFRONT!' Drew jabbed Annabeth in the shoulder.
Lacey winced.
'Ask him to give you an extremely long kiss in a flirtatious way.'
'I DON'T DO FLIRTATIOUS, IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED!' Annabeth screamed.
'Remember, Miss Brainy, you're a GIRL. You'll have it in you.'
'Well...I-'
Connor Stoll dipped his head in.
' A long kisssssssss?' He crooned to Drew, pronouncing the word kiss like hiss.'
Drew was ready to scream her lungs into disrepair when Connor did something completely unexpected.
He kissed her. For a really, really, really long time. After that kiss, it turned into an out-of-the-blue make out session in the back of the bus. Annabeth and Lacey squirmed to get out. Drew and Connor made way, not even breaking their, like, fifteenth kiss.
'GUYS!' Lacey shouted giddily. 'CONNOR AND DREW ARE MAKING OUT!'
The younger kids pretended to barf, the preteens looked away, but everyone thirteen or older thundered to the back of the bus, smartphones and cameras in hand. Except for Travis. He smiled to himself in the front seat. He thought, satisfied, to himself, 'I knew that dare would last WAY longer than five minutes.
Percy was leaning against the brick wall, eating something (no wonder) blue.
Annabeth daintily (DAINTILY?) walked over to him. She was wearing a gray sleeveless dress and had MAKEUP on.
MAKEUP?
Percy's jaw almost dropped to the ground in shock.
Annabeth's dainty walk got more determined as she put a hand right next to Percy's frame on the wall.
'Hey' she cocked her head. 'Kiss me.'
'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!' Percy screamed and ran for his life.
'Aargh!' Annabeth thought to herself. That was out-of-character-and extremely hard to pull off.
'It was probably the makeup, I must look like a clown.' Annabeth said and groaned.
Five faces peeked out from the other corner of the wall.
'Nah, you looked stunning.' Leo drawled. 'But not as stunning as ME!'
'Knock it off, Leo...' Piper jabbed him hard in the ribs. 'It's true, though,' Piper continued, 'you look AMAZING!'
Tears had started to accumulate on the corners of Annabeth's eyes, which she then wiped off.
'Mhmm.' Jason nodded. 'You look fine.'
'Even prettier than your original self!' Both Hazel and Frank added this in perfect unison. They looked at each other for a millisecond and then dropped their faces in mortification.
'You looked smokin' doing that act. Why are you crying?' Leo asked a little naively.
Piper jabbed Leo in the ribs once more and he doubled over in pain.
As Leo was fake-crying in the background, Piper said they should all go out for chocolate ice cream.
'MMMMMMMMM, SWEET MAMA THAT WOULD HIT THE SPOT!' Leo was satisfied, and he showed it...kinda loudly.
'That's an amazing idea!' Hazel looped her arm with Annabeth's and Piper took up the other side. Jason nonchalantly-or he tried to be nonchalant- stumbled over to Piper's side and linked her arm with his. Leo pushed Frank next to Hazel and they held hands happily, without even realizing it. Leo realized that, because of this, he had to hold Frank's other hand. He was mentally complaining enough to push a really, really, REALLY fat donkey over, but stopped when he realized how blissful Frank looked next to Hazel.
Even though Annabeth had all her friends with her (and a triple scoop of chocolate ice cream) she still felt the pain of the growing gap in her heart.
'Aargh!' Percy thought to himself, slumping on a tree trunk near the river.
The Seven were avoiding him. 'What did I do wrong?' he thought desperately. 'How did I hurt Annabeth?' Tears streamed down his face.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn't even flinch. Only one person he knew could be that silent.
'Nico!' Percy was grateful to have at least some company.
Nico's eyes were filled with emotion for a second, or so Percy thought, but then Nico blinked and his eyes were back to normal. Well, as normal as they could be. Nico was pretty creepy.
'Why is everyone avoiding me?'
Nico silently looked at Percy for five, ten seconds. Then he shook his head and snapped out of it. He threw out a piece of chocolate and said some spooky-sounding spells.
Then, a tiny, fat, old man with the ugliest face possible popped up.
'Ah, Percy Jackson, we meet again!'
'WHO ARE YOU?'
'Kronos. I managed to get out of Tartarus, but this is my punishment form. And also I am Nico's servant forever.'
Percy felt a little dizzy. 'Uh, um, OK...'
'Show me what I want to see.' Nico ordered.
Kronos grumbled but after a while a smoke screen filled the sky with images from that afternoon.
First one was Hazel and Leo.
'You know, Leo, you can never get back there...'
'I'm gonna try. Hey, my case is more hopeful than Annabeth and Percy's.'
Hazel started to giggle.
'I mean seriously!' Leo continued. 'Annabeth flirts with Percy, like, ALL THE TIME, and he doesn't notice it!'
Hazel nodded.
'No wonder he's such a seaweed brain!'
Hazel lost it.
The second one was of Piper, Hazel, Annabeth, Lacey and Drew.
'First things first.' Piper announced. 'YOU'RE WITH CONNOR? CONNOR STOLL?'
'Mhmm.' Drew nonchalantly replied. 'He's a great kisser.'
'Don't you mean kissssssssser?' Lacey and Piper screamed with laughter.
Drew groaned. 'Very mature.'
'What's hopeless is'-and here Lacey tried, not exactly successfully, to stop laughing.-'PERCY!'
'YES! AARGH!' Annabeth said. 'I TELL HIM TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH ME AND HE LOOKS STRANGELY AT ME AND LEAVES!'
'He is such a-and pardon me for saying this,' said Hazel, 'SEAWEED BRAIN!'
'Hey that was my joke!' Leo appeared out of nowhere.
'Stop! STOP!' Percy screamed.
'Stop.' Nico said authoritively.
The flow of images stopped.
Percy was openly crying right now.
Nico leaned on his shoulder to show that he was supporting him- metaphorically AND literally-and Percy pulled him onto his lap and started to sob in his hair.
After five minutes, when Percy was finally done crying his eyes out, he tried to come back to reality. And then-he noticed Nico on his lap.
He stared at the pale-skinned teen with the delicate features and dark brown eyes like he never did before.
'This one.' He thought. 'This one will always be there for me.'
Almost without realizing what he was doing, Percy leaned in and kissed Nico full on the lips. Nico's eyes widened as he kissed Percy back with all the love in the world.
A rustle in the trees distracted Percy.
A blond head peeked out with the stormiest gray eyes in the world, filling with shock.
'ANNABETH?'
Annabeth's eyes got wider and wider. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She fled like a startled deer.
Percy's eyes were wide as well and tears were openly flowing down his face.
'Annabeth! ANNABETH!' Percy screamed her name over and over again like a madman.
Nico pushed Percy up and told him to run after her. Percy needed no warning. He bolted after Annabeth, his screams for her getting more and more distant.
Nico started quietly crying. It was bliss, those ten seconds, but he should have known that it wasn't going to last. He cursed himself, over and over again, as tears escaped and made blotchy stains on his clothes, visible in the moonlight.
Annabeth was standing at the top of a tall cliff, clutching at her stomach and sobbing her eyes out. The pain was too much.
'Percy...' She thought. Then she screamed and thrashed like a fish out of water. She took a step forward. She found that she couldn't move. Leo and Frank had pinned her down the very next second. Leo coiled her in strong wire and she couldn't move. She tried her best, slashing and biting at the wire. Finally, she stopped trying to escape. She was exhausted.
Frank transformed into a horse and Leo, carrying the energy-and-emotion drained Annabeth, rode him perfectly, different minds uniting as one in a time of great distress.
Chiron was waiting at the Big House as Leo jumped off Horse-Frank's back and helped Annabeth dismount. Chiron's eyes grew wide with many emotions-sadness, distress, and finally relief that she was still alive-but he kept his mouth into a tight, small, smile.
' Leo, Frank, Thank the Gods!'
They were silent, Leo grim and clenching both his fists, open tears pooling in Frank's eyes.
'My Gods, Percy, what have you done?' Chiron thought with sad curiosity.
'My dear Annabeth,' Chiron said softly, 'sleep.'
Annabeth closed her eyes.
'HEY!' Frank shouted. 'Did you tell her to die?'
'No, he told her to go to sleep.' His tenseness and worry came out in the form of annoyed words. Frank understood. He kept quiet.
All three of them stood and watched the sun rise.
'Percy...' Chiron repeated over and over again. 'What in the world did you do?'
Agony was breaking Percy apart. Snaking its way around his heart and tightening, cracking it. He wanted to
scream, but that wouldn't be enough. He opened Riptide and aimed above his wrist. Nico ran in, screaming,
'PERCY, NO, DON'T DO THAT!'
Percy's eyes hardened as he brought the blade down.
Nico, thinking fast, said, 'If you hurt me, I'll hurt myself.' He meant it, too.
Percy's eyes widened as he ran over to Nico and started hugging him, burying his nose into Nico's soft, unscented hair, sobbing, tears running down the sides of Nico's head. Percy, Nico realized, was showing him his fragile, broken side. He needed Percy to heal. Every tear that came out of Percy's eye eroded Nico's happiness. And so Nico made a split second decision- he pulled Percy back from him.
One, two, three.
Kiss.