For Annabeth, the whole soulmate thing starts in class her eighth grade year.
Well not really. Her soulmarks appear in eighth grade. She's been feeling things that aren't hers for as long as she can remember. She remembers feeling sadness and despair and fear so profound, even at the age of five, that she couldn't breathe let along go to school. She remembers that one day where she closed eyes and felt the ocean against her feet, felt chocolate melting on her tongue.
Her soulmarks aren't nearly as pleasant. The sudden burning feeling on her wrist hurts so much that she immediately drops her pen and almost falls out of her chair. She hears her teacher calling for the nurse in the distance as her vision begins to fade.
The last thing she thinks before she passes out is screw this.
She wakes up to the nurse's smiling face. "Congratulations, Annabeth!" she says. Annabeth pulls her sleeve to see a messy scrawl all over wrist.
"What the..."
"Your soulmarks have started coming in!" The nurse keeps smiling, waiting for Annabeth to answer.
Annabeth studies her wrist. "Can I have an icepack?"
The nurse tsks sympathetically, pitching forward as Annabeth nearly keels over. If the idiot on the other end doesn't stop drawing stupid shit she's going to-
She feels a laugh crawl up the back of her throat, but it only serves to make her angrier.
"I'm afraid an ice pack isn't going to help, dear," the nurse says, frowning as Annabeth glares at nothing in particular.
"Is there anything that will?" Annabeth asks desperately, staring at the upside words on her wrist. The nurse shakes her head.
lighten up a little, would u? it reads.
Annabeth scowls, picks up her backpack, and marches out of the room. She almost falls a few more times on her way back to class. When her hands slam into the tiled walls again, she feels his concern almost as strongly as if it were hers and it makes her day maybe a little better. She spends the rest of the afternoon in silent agony because her soulmate, whoever they are, cannot stop doodling and she fucking hates them for it.
She writes STOP on her arm in Sharpie, big enough to cover up their writing as soon as she gets home.
The first thing they do is write back. i'm percy, apppears sideways on her wrist, barely legible.
Please stop, she writes back.
He doesn't. (Or is it a she?)
She ignores them, in as much as that's possible in her current situation, and tries to focus on her math homework until five minutes later a starfish with four arms sears itself onto her other arm forcing her to admit defeat. She grabs a pint of her favorite ice cream and sits down in front of the television. The is half empty twenty minutes later.
Annabeth wakes up the next morning, feeling like hot needles are being pressed to her skin. It's better than yesterday, she muses, although she still feels like strangling whoever's on the other side.
you know you're gonna have to answer at some point? is scrawled near her elbow. She ignores them and walks into her bathroom
I know. This is me replying: please stop. Annabeth glares at her reflection in the mirror. Douche, she thinks, angrily pulling up her sleeve.
what's your name? he asks one day. She doesn't respond. oh come on. i told u mine. it doesn't even have to be ur real name. i won't know the difference.
Will you stop if I tell you? Annabeth writes back, gritting her teeth.
sure he responds, adding a lopsided winky face for good measure.
She remembers her grandmother and writes, Kate
pretty name, appears on the back of her hand.
You can stop now.
never told u when i'd stop, appears on the inside of her wrist, along with another winky face. Annabeth throws her pen against the wall in frustration. She swears she can hear him laughing.
now you really have to write smth, he writes back the next day. we both know im not stopping.
Annabeth sighs angrily, resigned. What do you want? She feels his amusement almost as if it's her own.
2 get 2 know u
What does that entail, exactly?
guess you'll just have to find out. Annabeth can almost hear the snark in his voice. She tries to picture him, tries to imagine the expression on his face.
What's your full name then?
thought u weren't interested
We were gonna have to do this at some point.
There's a bit if a pause before she feels the stinging and sees perseus jackson.
Annabeth Chase," she writes back.
i can't believe u lied to me :(. She laughs and lets herself believe that this will work out despite all the evidence stacked against it (read: Frederick and Athena Chase).
She likes to say his name, likes the way the syllables fall off her tongue, natural and familiar even though she hasn't seen him at all. It makes her feel...closer to him somehow, hearing his name as opposed to seeing them. She wonders, sometimes if he's doing the same thing she is, whispering her name to the mirror like it's a secret.
The room is empty, hell the whole house is empty, but it still feels like someone's listening in, trying to steal the peculiar intimacy of saying her soulmate's name aloud. "Perseus Jackson," she whispers to the wall.
She gets to know him a lot better over the next few months. His favorite color is blue, he's obsessed with the ocean, he loves his mother more than anything and nothing, not even her, is going to change that. She tells him about her too, about how her mom left and how her dad never talks to her anynore and how she liked to paint when everything was still okay.
She likes feeling the pain that comes with talking to him, likes pressing down on the words he writes into her skin trying to feel that again. She remembers how she used to loathe him for making her feel the pain of the needles that surely exist under her skin, and wonders how she could've ever hated him for something that makes her feel so happy. The concern and happiness that he sends her way makes her feel wanted and loved and she would never ever give that up.
Annabeth's mother comes back on her birthday. Someone rings the doorbell and she knows something's up when her father rises out of his favorite chair to answer. He doesn't know who's on the other side when he does, but she thinks later that maybe he had an inkling because they're still soulmates, regardless of whatever happened between them.
She doesn't say anything when her dad opens the door, and Annabeth doesn't realize who it is at first until she remembers a picture that sits in a dark corner on father desk and takes a look at her father's broken expression. He doesn't look like he's going to say anything, so she speaks for him.
"What do you want?"
Athena blinks. "I...can I come in?"
Annabeth looks at her dad and so does Athena. He sighs, pulls the door back a little farther and steps aside. Athena smiles awkwardly. This time her dad speaks.
"Why are you here, Athena?" he asks, and he sounds so weary, so tired.
"I wanted to get to know my daughter."
He laughs. "No you don't. If you had wanted to get to know her, you wouldn't have left."
Her mother sighs. "Look, I know I made a mistake and I...I shouldn't have left and I'm sorry. But I'm back now and that counts for something right?"
Her father takes a long look at Athena. "Annabeth, why don't you go out for a minute, and I'll sort this out with your mother."
"But I-"
"Go. She'll be here when you come back. Promise." He gives her a small smile, that she returns. It feels good to be able to say her father is going to take care of her.
She hears laughing when she gets back.
"Remember when you threatened to leave if all of your chairs weren't the same color," her dad is saying. He hasn't sounded this happy in years.
"Remember when you were so anal you ha to write on top of a yardstick," Athena shoots back.
"Touche," her father says, smiling brighter than he ever has. She feels a pit in the bottom of her stomach.
"I missed this," her mother says smiling.
Her father's smile collapses. "Then why'd you leave?"
"You know why," she says quietly. "I was scared. I didn't know what to do."
The pit opens wider. Annabeth backs away, horrified. They lost this because of me, she thinks. Then she leaves. She walks out the door, takes one step, then two, then three, and then she's running. She feels Percy's worry mixed in with her resenment and self-loathing, but she's too far gone to care. I did this, she thinks.
She stops once, looks down at her hands. "you okay?" she sees.
For the first time in a long time, she doesn't know.
notes: i'm a little dissapointed in this one, so i'm probably gonna edit it soon. but for now, please please read and review!