StruckaMatch&BlewYourMind
A/N: This is the one-shot that my best friend wrote for me, so I do not take credit for this storyline! We both hope you enjoy reading it! xoxo
Prompt: I know we were never officially together or anything but seeing that picture you posted on Instagram with her literally felt like you carved my heart out of my chest and stomped on it and I'm not really sure why I'm leaving this voicemail but my pillow still smells like you and I miss your stupid face.
Pairing: Percy/Annabeth
Word Count: 2,412
"He's always too dang chipper," Annabeth hisses at the phone. It may have been fierce in her mind, but she knows her voice is a little too wobbly for it to sound like anything other than mild disdain. Percy drones on through her phone, citing his name and number.
"Leave a message at the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Maybe. Hopefully. Uh—bye!"
The time between the ending crackle and the beep is just a second, but Annabeth somehow squeezes in a sad laugh and a watery smile.
"Um, hey, Percy, it's Annabeth—"wait, he'd know that, he has caller ID— "and I just um. Wanted to tell you that I know we never like went on a real date or anything but I was scrolling through Instagram, even though I really should be working on that thesis paper you used to give me a hard time about, but I saw that picture you posted and I don't know why but my chest started hurting and I need someone to blame and I don't know whoever 'rachel-red-dare' is anyway. I'm not even sure why I'm leaving this message and I'm not even sure if I'll be able to sleep because my pillow still smells like the beach like you and I miss your pretty face."
Somehow, her thumb lands on the EndCall button, and she still has some art projects to work on, but her roommate will be home soon and if Annabeth is already asleep she won't have to hear about where Piper and Jason made out at the frat party tonight. She loves Piper, but frat parties are a bit too freshman year for Annabeth. And there's no way she's checking Instagram again.
She sighs solemnly; she knows calling her old chem partner was stupid and rash, but she also has faith in the fact that he's bad about checking his voice messages and is even worse about remembering to bring anything up.
Annabeth plugs in her phone to the charger and tucks herself in on top of the too-firm mattress. She sticks a leg outside the covers, testing the cold dorm AC, before curling up and falling asleep, memories of a boy with sea-green eyes dancing just under her eyelids.
Annabeth wakes up Saturday morning to Piper yelling at the alarm.
"Shut up!" she hisses. "Stop, stop, I turned you off—" She continues messing with her phone.
"Piper," Annabeth groans from the other bed, putting the pillow over her ear. "Just click snooze, I don't know."
"Gotcha!" Piper says, apparently mastering her iPhone as the car-horn-sound finally stops. Annabeth lets out a sigh from under the pillow.
"I have two drawings due Monday," she says, voice muffled. "And I don't want to do either of them."
"Sucks for you," Piper says, far too chipper for 7:30AM. "I only have a few chapters to read. And I have a Christmas party to go to tonight!"
Annabeth moves the pillow, blonde hair a mess. "Another frat party? How many can they have?"
"No, it's a Theatre Club thing," Piper says, tugging a sweater on. "We're gonna have food. And a Christmas cookie contest, I think. You could ace that."
"You want me to come, don't you," Annabeth sighs, pulling herself out of bed.
"It'll be fun," Piper says, fully aware she hasn't answered Annabeth's question. "There are lots of cute boys in theatre. It's time we get you out for a night on the town."
Annabeth gives Piper a dry look. "This is a college town," she says, searching for a pair of jeans. "Where's he gonna take me—Italie's?"
Italie's was a campus-wide joke. Their pasta wasn't half-bad, and the pizza made frequent appearances on study nights. But the tacky décor of Italian postcards and landmarks made it… cringey. And nothing spreads across a campus faster than something that can make people cringe.
"That's not the point!" Piper scolds. "You should come, okay? It might be fun…" she sings out the last word.
"Fine," Annabeth laughs. "I hope to win the cookie contest."
Annabeth is losing, but that isn't even close to being on her mind. She groans quietly as the frosting drips off the cookie again. "C'mon, turn into a Santa hat," she hisses, deliberatelynot looking at the corner of the room where a certain black-haired boy is with someone with the Instagram of rachel-red-dare. Redmakessense, she muses to herself as she adds white accents to Santa's clothes. Shehashairtomatchandeverything.
She tries not to think about the voicemail or the almost comical look he'd given her when she walked in. Curse him for actually checking. Oh, he'd heard that message, all right. He was never good at hiding anything. But she was apparently good at forgetting things—like the fact that he worked with the set and costume crews regularly. Of course he'd be here.
Jason dots frosting on Piper's nose, and she laughs. Their cookies are largely undecorated.
The room itself is just a cleared-out classroom, though the desks had been arranged into a U-shape, and chairs were stacked in the corner. The projector at the front of the room was playing RudolphtheRed-NosedReindeer, and a few junior boys were making loud commentary to the side, mostly with expletives about which character should shove their what where and demanding for people to show up at elf practice.
A girl named Katie Gardner wins the contest with a beautiful rendition of a white Christmas tree, but a boy named Travis Stoll was the judge, and given the smitten look he gave her, Annabeth guesses Katie would have won even if her cookie looked like Piper and Jason's.
A few of the more outgoing theatre kids—including Rachel and Piper—gather in the center and play improv games. Annabeth bumps into Silena, a girl from their dorm who always has extra bracelets to give out.
"Hey, Annabeth!" she says. "Enjoying the party?"
"I am," Annabeth replies. "Nice sweater!"
Silena looks down at her shirt. The design consisted of a reindeer whose red nose lit up sporadically. She laughed. "Thank you. My boyfriend got it for me."
"That's cute," Annabeth says with a smile.
A hand taps Silena's shoulder. "Hey, you don't mind if I steal Annabeth for a minute, right?"
Silena whirls around. "Oh, sure," she says, shooting Annabeth a look that says Sincewhendoyouhaveaboyfriend?Itotally wantdetails!
Annabeth now has two things to dread, and the first one is standing in front of her with sea-green eyes alight with amusement. "Hi, Percy," she forces herself to say, and tries to squeeze out a relaxed smile, too. It probably looks like she's seeing a hermit crab halfway out of its cage. Man, she hated those things.
"So," he says, "make any drunk dials recently?"
Annabeth pauses. Darn his lack of tact and general social awareness. She can barely remember what she said last night. But she and Percy also "sober-swore" last semester, and voice message or no voice message, she doesn't want to let him down, at least on that.
"No," she says finally. And then, to give her answer more substance: "I haven't."
She continues looking ahead, where two other theatre students are doing some sort of dance. Annabeth doesn't get it.
She and Percy never went on a date-date. They had late study nights as chem partners. Professor Brunswick was a legend for his lack of general instruction in the lab, and the lab in itself was notorious for the amount of students who left it nursing burns, cuts, and the like.
And, naturally, there had been some nights when they forfeited studying for watching a movie, and if they woke up in each other's arms, then who was there to judge? And who cared if he kissed her cheek before he left? Certainly not Annabeth, who definitely did not replay that moment for two weeks.
Percy is still looking at her, and Annabeth hates herself for not making a move.
"Well, you see, I happened to get an interesting voicemail from someone last night," Percy says, tone nonjudgemental. "They had your name and voice and number, even," he continues, quieter. "I was wondering if you could help me figure out how that might have happened, since you're so smart and all." His smile is lopsided, and Annabeth hates him. She hates him so much she could kiss him.
"I'm not good with technology," she offers. "That's why I'm an art major."
Percy laughs. "And that's how you somehow ended up leaving a two-minute voicemail? How is that thesis paper coming, anyway?"
"It's coming," she says, shrugging noncommittally. "It depends on my interest level for the day in Greek art."
"Rachel's an art major, too," Percy offers, and Annabeth's heart hurts all over again. She hates him for checking his messages. The picture he'd posted had been of Rachel and him. He was smiling at Rachel, and she was doing a cheesy grin at the camera. Whatawonderfultimeoftheyear, the caption read. Annabeth recalled it bitterly.
"Oh," she says, hiding any thoughts Percy may not like about this girlfriend of his. "That's nice."
"It is," he agrees. "We met in Math 1314 and became friends because we're both number dyslexic. You know, that thing that made me keep getting chem equations wrong?"
Annabeth allows herself a small laugh at that, recalling all the worksheets they had to erase and redo.
"So, yeah, she's taken me to some of the campus art shows and I've seen your art there—it's really good."
Annabeth's eyes widened. "Oh—my—you saw—thank you," she says, finding the right words. "I'm glad you like my work."
Percy's eyes brighten. "Of course. Honestly," he says, dropping his voice a bit with a smile, "going is a fun thing to do. Would you like to come in the hall? It's a bit quieter."
"Sure," Annabeth says, following him.
"Anyway," Percy continues, holding the door for her, "I normally get to look at all of the pieces for a bit. Rachel tries to set me up with her artist friends a lot, and there's no faster way to get someone to be quiet in a conversation than to be engaged in their work. They don't want to ruin the appreciation of it," he explains.
"So… you don't actually like the work?"
"No," Percy laughs. "It's amazing in itself, but I must say that I admire any social cue that gets me out of conversation. Being single kind of sucks sometimes, but getting set up with someone you don't know is even worse."
"I guess I agree," Annabeth says, musing over where a night alone got her—calling this boy. "So… what are some social cues here to get you out of conversation?"
"Well," Percy starts, "getting snacks and drinks is always a go-to. But, you know, there's always the trick of 'getting-the-girl-who-left-a-very-personal-voicemail-in-the-hallway,' if you know what I mean." He gives her a good-natured smile.
Annabeth looks down. She wants to apologize but her pride is stuck in her throat, so she kicks at the carpet floor.
"So, on a scale of one-to-ten, with ten being flawless, how pretty is my face?" he asks, and Annabeth loves him and hates him and feels like nothing right now.
"I'm sorry," she whispers instead of crying like she kind of wants to. Takes a deep breath. "That was very unprofessional and immature of me. I was tired and my emotions got the best of me and I'm sorry." There. Over. Now she can part ways with a clear conscience and—
Percy laughs. "It's all right," he tells her, pulling her into his arms for a hug. "I didn't mind." She knows he knows she doesn't get hugged enough—it was something she'd confessed quietly during one of their movie nights. And she is a strong, independent woman, but darn her if she doesn't like being held sometimes. Even if she's still a little mad at him.
"I'm sorry I don't smell so ocean-y today," he says, and Annabeth hears him holding back his laughter. "I had to prep for a Christmas party and all that."
Just a little mad, but she spares him a smile against his chest.
"And," Percy continues, pulling away to look her in the eyes, "you I miss your pretty face, too. Actually, you in general."
"Thanks," she tells him, honestly. "I… miss you in general, too. And all that. But—why on earth did you finally start checking your voice messages?"
"I still don't," Percy says casually. "But when a smart and cute girl pops up in your recent calls, you kind of want to know what she has to say, you know?"
Annabeth stares at him, mind whirring a thousand miles per hour.
Percy grins. "Annabeth, would you like to know one of my most favorite ways to get out of conversation?"
Annabeth raises her eyebrows questioningly. "Is this some kind of test, or…."
Percy only smiles softly at her before looking up. "Pointing out mistletoe."
And, sure enough, there's somehow a plant above them, tied with a bit of tan rope.
"Mistletoe is actually poisonous," Annabeth says on reflex. She wants to hit herself.
"Everyone knows that," Percy brushes off. "More people know that than kiss under it, I think."
Annabeth hopes she knows where this is going. "We can try to fix that statistic if you want."
Percy smiles at her easily, just like he has all night, and she finds herself fighting her own grin as she leans in to kiss him.
And, regardless of whatever holiday prep he'd been doing, he tasted like walking on the beach in the morning and running in ocean waves as the sun went down.
When she pulls away, Percy's eyes are lit up like Christmas lights. "Hey, Annabeth?"
She keeps looking at him. "Hm?"
His eyes laugh with him as he says, "I really like your pretty face."
She shoves lightly at his shoulder as she laughs with him before pulling him in again.
When Percy posts a picture that night, it's of him and a girl smiling at his side. Had a great time hanging with abchase and avoiding all other conversations! the caption reads.
And when she calls him that night, she's greeted with his laugh, not a message tone.