Guard Duty
By: St Jon of PDX
Okay so this is basically just a glimpse into Annabeth's mind in the not so distant future. Her POV. Somewhat subtle Percabeth (so I'm told, I don't really think it's subtle at all, but…) viewed, hopefully, through the light of their strong friendship.
NOT BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH COMPLIANT! This fic was written before BotL was released and is meant to be set in a theoretical, now AU, future branching off from The Titan's Curse.
**REVISED**
Note 12/15/2008: So, I have been telling myself that I was going to go in a fix some of the grammar errors that popped up in this for, like, a month. Ah well, I finally got around to it and did some fleshing too. Hope you enjoy! Cross-Posted w/ .
***
Gods, it's freezing out here.
Teeth chattering, I try to pull my denim jacket closer to my body but it does literally nothing to impede the icy gusts of wind that are slicing through me. So, perhaps, this jacket had not been the wisest choice I could have made for a night sitting alone atop a big hill on Long Island. In the middle of winter.
But damnit, I look good in this jacket and I haven't had a lot of time lately to just be a girl. To busy saving the world. And saving the world is amazing. Fantastic, even. But really, it doesn't leave a lot of time for makeup and pretty—as opposed to functional—clothing. And have you ever tried fighting the demonic forces of the Lord of Time? Hell on a fresh manicure, I'll tell you.
And, I mean, I'm not one of Aphrodite's little princess, I enjoy a good fight as much as any of Ares' spawn; I am, after all, the child of the Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare. But I've seen the paintings and statues and woodcarvings of those battles all over Olympus and, really, mom's a goddess. When she goes to war against the forces of darkness she wears a toga and a magic helmet and never—never, ever—breaks a nail.
I think I'm jealous.
Seriously though, I wasn't even supposed to be out here tonight. Cabin Heads rotate guard duty on The Hill and tonight was supposed to be Clarisse's turn. But no, The Oracle had to go and get all gaseous and glowy and spouting off tasks that just had to be attended to by the daughter of Ares. And the son of Poseidon.
And if that sounds like I'm jealous, I absolutely, positively, am not. Even if Clarisse and Percy have been getting along better since the summer before last—something about flaming horses and a petting zoo. Not that I care.
What I do care about is that they are off right now having an adventure. And me, I'm on guard duty. Yay.
Which means, really—if you think about it—that me sitting up here freezing my ass off is really all Percy Jackson's fault.
My thoughts grind to a halt as I catch movement in the fields, maybe a hundred yards away. My entire body is up in a crouch within a second as my hands search for and find the binoculars beside me. The comforting weight of the javelin at my back centers me. My mom invented the javelin; I'm pretty good with them.
Really good, actually. Not that I would brag.
I scan the ground near where I saw the movement, but all I see is long grass and the occasional rogue blackberry vine, creeping up towards the camp. Mr. D's presence was almost magnetic towards fruit-bearing plants. Funny, as he was so repulsive to everything else.
Still, I am a daughter of Athena, and I don't view the world quite as others do. Sight was just a fraction of my perception of reality.
Slowly, I allow my body to relax as my mind sharpens. My eyes lose their focus and for a second all I can see is a blurry dark field-like blob before everything snaps into sudden clarity. And I mean everything.
Every color is as bright as I have ever seen them on a summer's day; every shadow teemed with the footsteps of insects and the heartbeats of field mice, I can smell the fragrant smoke from the long dead bonfire drifting up, buoyed by the lighter perfumed air wafting from the strawberry fields.
This is my power—the power of the children of Athena. For a just a single moment I can feel the connections between every single thing in the physical world within my senses; and so much more. I can see the future, in a fashion, laid out before me like the answer to the equation of the present if only I could see more. If only I could see the entire world like this, I could change it. I could make it better. Build such splendid—
There.
A heartbeat. Human, male, my age or a little older, coming from inside the camp border—a camper. Used to being graceful but limping now. And I'm moving already, spinning, because whoever's limping up to me isn't down in the long grass but behind me and close. My daggers in my hand and my hyper-stimulated mind is still categorizing facts.
He's wearing flip-flops, and his footfalls are too light to be wearing armor. I forget instantly about what I was originally searching for and focus all my senses on the man coming towards me, still around the other side of Thalia's tree and out of sight—and then I know who it is and my mind falls out of it's enhanced awareness so fast it makes me dizzy and I have to catch myself against the tree trunk.
"Tripping over your own feet Wise Girl? Aren't you supposed to be all graceful and feminine? I believe that was part of your whole 'Girls kick ass, period' speech you gave me the other day."
I want to throw back some smart-ass comment about how if he would simply accept that women are the superior sex, he might get more dates but the jibe lodges in my throat as he comes around the tree and I get a good look at him.
"Oh my God, Percy are you okay?"
It really was a very stupid question and I might have been embarrassed by it if I wasn't distracted by how very not okay he looked.
He had been hit in the head, hard. A kinda bluish-purple color was beginning to bloom out from his left eye to replace the angry red hue that entire side of his face had taken on. On top of that he had a couple of cuts on his cheek and his left shin was wrapped up in bandages where it poked out from his camo shorts.
Typically, Percy seemed oblivious to that fact that he was freaking injured. "I'm perfectly fine, Annabeth. Great, actually, since Argus gave me the special ambrosia to help with the pain. I should get pummeled more often. May sting at the time, but it's defiantly got its perks."
Now that I'm really studying him—not that I study him often, it's just that he's injured…'cause I would totally not be checking him out if he were healthy, not that I'm checking him out—he does look kinda out of it. His pupils are blown up like saucers and even his good cheek has a flush to it. And his voice does sound kinda distant. Almost slurred.
"You're stoned," Oh, not really—nothing worse than a dose of morphine would give you, won't even last very long. But…but Percy is high. And under most circumstances I could bury my amusement under some kind of disapproval but this…he's medicated. He is medicated and wondering 'round camp in the middle of the night looking all mussed and confused and cute—and terrible and injured, but still—and how, how I ask you, am I not supposed to laugh at him?
"I am not! I'm just…hungry. I'm hungry. Hey do you have food?" He doesn't wait for a reply, just kinda ploppes down awkwardly onto a tree root—the tree root I had been sitting on, thank you very much—and starts going through the messenger bag that I brought up here with me.
Which, really, isn't all that indicative of his condition. Percy seems genetically incapable of understanding the concept that it is dangerous to piss me off and he would route around my bag just to bug me.
His eleven-year-old-girl squee of delight when he finds a half eaten baggie of teddy grahams, however, proves to be the final straw. I burst out laughing. And laughing. And I'm pretty sure I looked a bit crazy from the slightly worried look Percy gives me but he is quickly distracted by a snickers bar he finds in one of the pockets on the bag and promptly forgets about me entirely.
I laugh harder and collapsed next to him—and if I was a little closer to him than was strictly necessary then, well, he wouldn't really notice in his current state of mind.
Except, he did. 'Cause right now he's staring at me and for some reason I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with it suddenly seems like I'm much more interesting than the chocolate bar he's just let fall half eaten to the grass. And wasn't I laughing a second ago? Because right now I'm not laughing, and I don't remember stopping but I'm really, really not laughing right now. I'm staring too; into eyes that certainly are not the most beautiful I have ever seen. Because if they were then I would be tempted to do things that I defiantly cannot be tempted to do. Ever. Never-Ever. Period.
But I'm still staring. And all I can feel is where our thighs and elbows are pressed up together.
Because, really, lets be honest. Would you look away? Of course not. Because even though it is dangerous and scary and I feel like I am about to take a very long fall with a very painful splat at the end, he's looking at me with those eyes—and weren't they glazed over because they sure as hell seemed pretty focused now—and all I can hear is that little voice in the back of my head saying, "jump."
And then he's turned away and his eyes are scrunched up in pain and a sound works its way from deep in his chest that he would be horrified to know sounds very similar to a whimper.
"A-Ambrosia…wearing off, I think," he stutters. He stays like that for a full minute; eyes slammed shut, back erect and every muscle and line taught. Suddenly there does not seem anything even slightly amusing about him. "I think, maybe, I'm not doing my clearest thinking. The ground is moving way too much."
Well, no duh. 'Cause he doesn't stare at me like that when he's thinking clearly and I don't know if I should be offended or flattered by that fact.
It ends up not mattering. Slowly his clenched fists uncurl and his shoulders slacken into a somewhat lopsided facade of normalcy. He looks back at me and gives me that one-sided smirk he's really good at, equal parts cocky bravado and genuine friendship.
I've never told him, but that look reminds me of Luke. Not the way he is now. Not the Luke that left me to hold up the sky. But…Luke. My Luke. I've never told Percy, but I can see so much of my Luke in him.
I'm sure Percy would just love to hear all about that.
"What did this to you, anyway? And where the hell was Clarisse?" I change the subject.
"Clarisse was busy driving a really big truck into the back of the very small, easily managed monster that did this," he motions down to himself, as if feeling that this needed explanation. "Well, comparatively small…"
"Compared to what?"
He hesitates. "A small ocean liner?"
"Percy…" I think maybe I should be worried about how well I have perfected saying his name in that annoyed, warning tone.
"It was a gigantes, 'kay. No big deal," he says it really softly, like by whispering I won't scream at him for being insane and reckless and what do you think you were doing getting into a fight with a gigantes, mister!?
But when I suck in the breath that's destiny is to say all of those things, as well as call him a few choice names, it just kinda gets stuck in my throat because he was looking at me again and this time I saw how very bad that head wound looked. How very vulnerable he looked. And I've seen that look before on Percy's face.
It's the look he get's when, for just a moment, he has genuinely believed that he's going to die. And once again it strike me how very much Percy reminds me of Luke. How many times after his disastrous quest have I seen that exact same haunted look on Luke's face.
And all I can do is stare at him and I suddenly don't care in the least how amazing his eyes are because all I can think about is that he almost died and maybe Clarisse saved him or maybe he saved himself because Percy never gives up but he almost died. And all I can think about is what do I do if he dies? We're in a war and he's the Son of Poseidon. And not just any son, but the hero son. The campers call him Triton when they think he can't hear them—Poseidon's favorite child.
I wish they wouldn't call him that, it felt too much like a bad omen. The original Triton died defending Olympus.
Or even worse than that, what the hell do I do if he goes the way Luke did. It could never happen, of course. He's Percy Jackson, he couldn't falter. But then, neither could Luke Castellan. I don't think I could take it, having another person I feel this way about turn into another person I'm supposed to hate. Another person I have to try so hard to hate.
So I do what I can. I take his right arm and sling it around me, snuggle up into the brown hoodie he's wearing and try to relax my suddenly hammering heart. Try not to think about how he isn't stiffening against my touch. Try to imagine that he's shaking because, really, it's very chilly out here.
It's bitterly cold and my butt's numb from sitting on this damn tree root and this position is going to start to hurt my neck soon and I really don't care.
"I'm here if you need me, Seaweed Brain," and I'm proud because my voice doesn't shake once, not even a little.
"I know," and I'm proud because I think he really might know more than I've put in words.
***