So for my 200th story, I couldn't help but feel like it'd just be right to post a Percabeth story. This ficlet has been waiting to come into the light for a few months, and so I hope that as it crawls out from under it rocks, it brings enjoyment to your day.
Disclaimer: I don't own the world of demigods.
Avoidance
When Annabeth was little, she was often left one when asleep in one of the shelters Luke and Thalia had built prior to finding her- so that the big kids could talk tactics or whatnot. She woke up thirsty and found a flashlight to turn on in her search for water. She didn't find her bottle -a green one with stripes that Luke had stolen especially for her- but instead stumbled upon a huge spider that had crawled in through a crack.
Of course, she screamed bloody murder and in a panic Thalia and Luke burst in with their swords drawn. Annabeth ran into Thalia, who cradled her in her arms, and shook like a leaf, stuttering about spiders for a good ten minutes before calming down.
"I brought it out," Luke informed them.
"It's not dead?!" Annabeth asked in panic.
"It went the other way, don't you worry." Luke said. "You know what Annabeth? You should start facing your fear instead of just screaming for Thals."
"But they're spiders." Annabeth said.
"Avoidance never works even with bugs."
"They're arachnids!" Annabeth defended. "And they have eight legs. What kind of creature needs eight legs? Nobody! It's unnatural!"
"Luke, you can teach her valuable life lessons tomorrow. She's exhausted right now." Thalia said.
And so Annabeth Chase went back to bed without her drink of water and without learning not to avoid things.
Ten years later, Annabeth was proud –and also relieved- to say that she was a fair bit braver. She'd looked death in the eye and charge fear with a knife at most, and sometimes less than a knife. Literally 'fear' and 'death' sometimes- Percy had managed to bring her on the weirdest adventures and quests.
And she had thought that she had gotten rid of her tendency to avoid.
She hugged Piper goodbye.
"Don't worry I'll still be at camp all the time," Annabeth asked. "There's too much that's going to need doing for me to miss it all."
"I'm going to miss you anyways," she said. "Have fun at school."
She was just talking to Will and sympathising with him ('thanks Annabeth, now my boyfriend'll be in the forges 24/7 as opposed to 20/7') when she saw Jason lurking around, helping a few of Piper's siblings drag their trunks back up Half-Blood hill, oblivious to the fact that he was being exploited as eye candy. Upon eye contact, he started coming closer.
Annabeth freaked out and grabbed her bag, said goodbye quickly and hopped in the Camp van.
Everyone was loading in and Argus drove off before Jason could come say goodbye and have a nice year and see you soon and blah, blah, blah.
Annabeth breathed out. She couldn't deal with that right now. Not with Jason, who'd showed up from a world that she didn't want to exist while simultaneously being so similar to the one thing that she wanted. Percy.
"Ear bud?" Roxanne asked. Roxanne Anderson was truly a strange cookie, and her study habits were non-existent until it was time to cram, in which case she became a nightmare to bunk with. Her real passion was music; so when Rox offered you one of her ear buds it was truly, truly a mark of friendship and undying affection.
Annabeth nodded and put it in her ear and went back to the algebra homework she had specifically put aside for study hall.
"Oh, I know that i am here
and you are there
but we still have our love
we move just like the moon and sun.
The sun comes up the moon rolls down
a world apart but they don't make a sound.
They know their love spins us round.
I've been to heaven, I've been to hell,
I've been to Vegas, and god knows where,
but nothing feels like home like you babe
I love you more than you will ever."
Annabeth ripped the ear bud out of her ear, making Roxanne frown. Annabeth kept her head down and her eyes fixed on the numbers and letters she was scribbling to avoid all questions.
Annabeth stopped by the bake sale for the school's environmental club. Not many people were paying attention to the little stand and Annabeth felt bad for the handful of her friends who were managing it, though they didn't look too hurt and pained. They played cards on their laps instead.
She walked forwards. Everything smelled good- there were cookies, cinnamon buns, peanut butter balls, slices of banana bread, cake pops and a wide display of cupcakes with colourful icing- everything from red to green, orange to yellow, purple to…
Blue.
She changed her mind and walked away before anyone looked up from the game of cards.
Annabeth's biology class was going to the beach to collect samples to examine under microscopes.
Not funny fates. Not funny.
She faked a cold for three days straight before the outing and managed to pull off being sick the day of the field trip.
Her friends convinced her to spend the day off campus with them by promising to supply her with coffee -yes, even her expensive whipped-cream, chocolate spiked favourite cup- for the duration of exam week.
There were six of them in Nadia's car, and smashed in the backseat between two people who were laughing and passing along boxes of trail mix of puffy Cheetos, Annabeth was already feeling better. The music was turned up high, her hair was pulled up over her head, she was eating complete crap from the junk food bags either circulating or stuck between the two front seats, the two guys were being hilarious- one of them was sitting on the ground and ducked whenever a police car came anywhere close…
That's when the some idiot caller requested a bag song on the radio. It was a really old Jessie McCartney song, the kind that made Thalia want to rip her ears off and shred them to pieces, and had already nearly done so back when they were twelve and went to save Nico and Bianca at that military school, and she and Percy had to dance so that their covers weren't...
Annabeth leaned in and changed the stations.
"Ask no questions," she said before leaning back, propping her feet on the edge of her seat and zipping her hoody back up, like a turtle retreating back inside her shell.
"School dance!" Marjorie said, crumbling at the cafeteria table, raising her hands.
Nadia and Rox sprung into conversations and Evan and Vince both chattered about getting dates early before all the good girls were taken. Annabeth punched them for that comment, but otherwise kept to herself.
"Anna?" Nadia asked, tilting her head to the side as if Annabeth was a math equation to resolve.
"Oh no," Marjorie said. "I know what you're thinking. I so know what you're thinking- but you are not ditching us for this."
"I don't have anyone to go with," Annabeth said weakly.
"You can come with us, sweetheart," Rox said.
"Come on, just the four girls," Nadia said. "It'll be fun!"
Annabeth shook her head.
"We did it in September, last time your boyfriend couldn't manage to show. It'll be fun!" Roxanne said.
He should be able to come this time, Annabeth wanted to say. That's the thing.
As good at avoiding as Annabeth Chase had become, Marjorie and Nadia and Roxanne were better at convincing and being as firm and steady as buildings. Besides, there were four of them and the mythological world hadn't been wearing their nerves thin for the last few months. So yes, Annabeth showed up at the dance, wearing a very dark blue dress, and danced with her friends. The second a slow came up, she made her exit from the dance floor. Evan and Vince and Nad's boyfriend Tim came in and caught the three of them before they caught up to Annabeth, who smoothed her dress and sat on the bleachers to wait it out.
Nobody asked her to dance because she was the girl whose boyfriend was missing, and people respected that. Even the most sexist and shallow jerk respected that- or respected Annabeth's ability to punch very well.
She just watched the couples dancing.
There were the couples who leaned against each other and held on tight. Annabeth had no deeper fantasy right now than to lean against Percy and hold on tight.
One girl was wearing a red dress the same colour as the coral pendant on her camp necklace- a late birthday present from Seaweed Brain who always missed it because it was smack in March. Her fingers went to her throat to feel the smoothness, but it wasn't there- just as absent as the boy who'd fished it out of the ocean. But at least she'd get her necklace back the second she went back to the dorms and changed out of her dress.
She saw a pair whose incredibly uncomfortable guy stepped on toes and winced whenever he did it, though his girlfriend didn't mind. Annabeth smiled. That was them- that was them whenever they'd danced. Percy just couldn't manage it, and Annabeth didn't care because it was the most endearing thing.
She saw a couple who wasn't dancing to the beat of the song that the DJ was blasting through the gym. It made Annabeth think of the ball on Olympus, after Luke had supposedly fallen to his death and Artemis had been freed, when everyone had been listening to their own song.
She sighed and leaned against the bleacher's railing.
Maybe she shouldn't have come after all. She wasn't truly enjoying herself- because when you had a boyfriend you weren't supposed to go stag to school dances and whatnot. You were supposed to be dancing or trying hard to dance on the dance floor during the slow songs while your single friends made sly comments. Although Annabeth didn't believe in being with her boyfriend every passing second and at event where it was optional to show up with a member of the opposite sex, she wanted to be with him now. Just like she had yesterday, and the day before that, and last week, and last month… She really should have called it a night and stayed home.
But what would have happened if Annabeth wouldn't have showed up at the dance? She'd have missed the one funny time where Evan spilled punch all over the snack table and ran away before anyone associated the accident with him, just to lie on her bed in her PJ's studying geography or Daedalus' laptop, probably listening to one of Roxanne's sad playlists and feeling miserable that she was alone.
You couldn't really avoid some things, could you? Emotions, thoughts, wants, needs... Not when they were rooted into you deeply.
Well should she learn to face it? Face her loneliness and his absence like a big girl, holding her head up high without playing hide and seek with dread/longing/Jason Grace/the present? That seemed like the logical answer, as she watched swaying couples.
She thought it out.
No; because facing it would feel like she was forgetting Percy Jackson a little bit, and that was just cruel irony there. She'd lose some of her drive if she got too comfortable with his absence, her eyes would get heavier more quickly during long nights of exchanging emails with Chiron or Leo about the Argo II's designs.
But she had to stop avoiding the fact that in real life, real people really loved each other- and sometimes loving someone meant that it hurt. Because that would make her resentful and bitter, and that would make her so unprepared for when she'd finally see Percy again and kiss him inside out and left to right. All in all, she just had to learn to live with the fact that Seaweed Brain had gotten himself kidnapped.