a.n. two chapters to make up for the lack of posting... sorry again!
The McCall's couch was comfortable. It was better than the motel bed that Annabeth and Percy had been staying in, anyway. It was soft and long enough for Annabeth to stretch her legs out, and she felt relatively safe there, but she couldn't sleep.
Percy was lying on a blowup mattress on the floor beside her; she could hear him breathing, a steady rhythm in the otherwise silent lounge. She wanted to check if he was awake, but didn't want to disturb him if he was asleep.
So Annabeth was stuck lying on her back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling of this strange house and running over everything that she'd learnt over the last day.
Werewolves could be friendly, for one.
She'd known something was weird about Scott McCall from the first moment she'd seen him in Biology - something about the way he held himself, with more awareness of his surroundings than the usual teenager - but she wouldn't have guessed that he was a werewolf until he'd shifted in their fight with the hellhound. He didn't seem like the type to enjoy violence or physical confrontations, nor did he seem to have any particular blood lust.
Annabeth had been wrong in her perceptions of supernatural people before, though. Look at Tyson.
So, for the most part, the McCall pack - made up of werewolves, humans and… something else, she suspected of Lydia - seemed friendly. They'd certainly been willing to go out of their way to help them save Hazel and Frank.
The two of them were asleep in the guest room, recovering from their traumatic kidnapping. The ambrosia had healed up the injuries on their wrists, and Frank's burns, but more time would be required for them to heal from the psychological scars.
After everyone else had left and Scott and Melissa had gone to bed, Hazel and Frank had sat up talking to Percy and Annabeth about what they'd been through.
They'd detailed how they'd been ambushed, how a highly organised and targeted group of werewolves, backed up by two hellhounds, had pounced on them. They'd had some sort of electrical device that had shocked Frank repeatedly and prevented him from shifting, and Hazel had been so terrified and overwhelmed by that that she hadn't been able to manipulate the mist fast enough. She'd been knocked unconscious in the fight, and when she'd woken up they'd been shackled in that underground lair.
It had been physical torture for Frank, who was shocked at regular intervals to prevent him from changing form, and it had been mental torture for Hazel, who could feel exactly which tunnels they could use to escape but had no way of getting to them.
Charlotte, the daughter of Apollo who'd originally been accompanying them, had made it back to Camp Jupiter safely purely because their enemy had wanted them to come looking for Frank and Hazel, Annabeth was sure of it. This entire thing was too well thought out and planned for her escape to have been a coincidence.
But what did Lycaon want? What made this pack of werewolves more desirable than others?
Something Stiles had said when they were in the reserve had been bugging her ever since. "We're near the Nemeton… a beacon for things that would like to hurt us."
She didn't recall anything about a Nemeton in ancient Greek or Roman lore, but, if the recent developments with her cousin Magnus were anything to go by, there was still plenty of mythological material out there to surprise her.
Lydia had felt strange being near the Nemeton, and Allison and Scott had looked outright terrified when Stiles had pointed out how close they were to it. Whatever magical properties that tree stump had, they weren't pleasant.
Agitated, Annabeth sighed and shifted on the couch, dropping her arm over the side and letting her hand graze the floor. Almost immediately, she felt Percy's fingers fill the spaces between her own.
"Are you awake?" she whispered, tilting her head to peer over the edge of the couch.
In the darkness she could just make out one of Percy's eyes, glinting in the tiny bit of moonlight filtering through a gap in the curtains. "Can't sleep," he murmured, squeezing her hand.
"Neither. I can't stop thinking about what Lycaon's plan is."
There was silence for a few moments, where Percy just ran the pad of his thumb in soft circles against the back of Annabeth's palm, and then he sighed.
She rolled onto her side so she could lean down closer to him. "What is it?"
"I don't like it here," Percy said. Annabeth resisted the urge to press him for more information, knowing the conversation would be more productive if she just let him take his time and speak when he was ready. Sure enough, after a brief pause, he continued on, voice low. "Something's messing with my powers."
Annabeth propped herself up on her elbow. "What do you mean?"
"Getting everyone out of that cave shouldn't have taken so much effort." There was the sound of rustling sheets as he rolled onto his side, and his hold on her hand loosened briefly before tightening again.
His sense of unease clawed its way from their linked hands up Annabeth's spine. She frowned. "There were a lot of people, and we were pretty deep underground -"
"I've done more than that before, you know I have." She could hear Percy's scowl in his voice.
"Yeah, but it was a stressful situation, you didn't have much time to prepare -"
He laughed so loud that she instinctively shushed him.
"When do I ever have time to prepare for shit like that?" he asked, in a slightly louder whisper than before. "It shouldn't have been enough to make me black out."
Annabeth didn't reply, because she knew he was right, and he knew it too.
She tugged on his arm until he got the hint and sat up so they were face to face. She pressed a soft kiss to his lips, finding them easily despite the dark, and when they parted she tugged him up onto the couch with her. He clambered up over the side and climbed on top of her, deliberately nuzzling his face into the side of her neck and tickling her ribs as he went.
"Percy!" She laughed and pushed at him, kicking gently at his legs. "Shh, Percy, stop, we have to -"
"I am being quiet," he whispered, filling in the end of her sentence. "I'm just trying to go to sleep and you're hogging the whole couch."
"If you'd get off me I could move over -"
"I'm not even on you, you're just… right in the way…" He huffed out a breath as she poked him in the ribs, tilting his head forward so that their foreheads were touching.
"I'll push you back onto the floor, don't think I won't." She squirmed into the back of the couch.
He breathed against her lips. "You wouldn't dare."
"Try me, Seaweed Brain." She hoped that he could feel her smirk.
She could certainly feel his. "Oh, I'd love to -"
"Oh my god!"
Annabeth pushed at Percy's shoulders, but he was already moving on his own, jumping back onto his feet. The blanket that had been between them caught on his ankle and pooled on the floor, but he didn't stumble, pulling Riptide from the pocket of his pants and uncapping it in one swift movement.
The light flickered on and Annabeth spun around to see a shirtless Scott backed up against the wall, one hand splayed on the lightswitch and the other covering his eyes. His gray sweats were slung low on his hips. "Sorry, I didn't - I just wanted some water, I forgot you guys were here -"
Annabeth closed her eyes and exhaled. "Scott."
"Are you - Can I -?"
"We weren't doing anything," Percy said, recapping Riptide. "You can open your eyes."
"Didn't sound like you weren't doing anything…" Scott mumbled, but he lowered his arms anyway. "Sorry for scaring you. I couldn't sleep."
"Neither could we," Annabeth said, sweeping her tangled hair over her shoulder.
Scott nodded and stumbled over to the sink. "Do you want some water?"
"That'd be great, thanks," Percy replied.
Annabeth shifted up so that he could sit beside her, and Scott took the armchair opposite her after handing them each a glass. The atmosphere was sufficiently awkward, with two shirtless boys and Annabeth sitting in tense silence.
"So how's it work?" Scott eventually asked, gesturing at his drink. "The whole 'power over water' thing… Is it, like, all water?"
Percy shrugged one shoulder and took a long gulp of his drink. Some of the shadow lifted from under his eyes as he did so. "Yeah. Seawater's best, and the more polluted the water the less it'll work for me, but yeah."
Scott's eyes were still slightly glassy from exhaustion, but he looked pretty riveted. "So, like, even rain water? This tap water?"
Percy lifted a finger and the water in Scott's glass floated into the air, forming a perfect sphere. He spun the sphere in the air in front of Scott's eyes before having it pour like a miniature waterfall back into his cup.
"Whoa!" Scott exclaimed. "That's amazing!"
"Show off," Annabeth teased, knocking her knees into Percy's. He smiled at her, a little bashful.
Scott went to take a sip of his drink and then seemed to think twice about it. He cradled the cup in his hands and asked, "So today, when you got us out of there, you summoned that water from underground? Can all children of Poseidon do that?"
"Uh, well, there aren't any other demigod children of Poseidon at the moment, so I don't know, actually," Percy explained.
Scott gaped. "You're the only child of Poseidon?"
"Only demigod child of Poseidon," Percy corrected. "I have a brother who's a cyclops -"
"A cyclops!"
"And some other half-siblings who I'd rather not think about… it gets sort of weird…"
Scott turned to Annabeth. "What about you, are you the only demigod child of Athena?"
Annabeth laughed. "No, definitely not. I have plenty of brothers and sisters."
"She's the best of the bunch, though," Percy said.
She ducked her head, hiding her smile. "You're biased."
When she looked back to Scott, he was watching them with a soft smile, almost like he was reminiscing.
She straightened her spine and cleared her throat. "So, Scott, you said you couldn't sleep - Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just… I can't help worrying about why Lycaon chose Beacon Hills." He sighed and ran a hand down his face.
"We'll make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else," Percy said immediately.
"I know we're going to try, but Derek seems pretty worried about it, and from what you guys have said it seems like we're in real trouble. I don't know if the pack's ready to fight another enemy like this…" Scott lowered his voice and dropped his gaze, hands curling tightly around his cup. "I don't know if I'm ready to lead them in a fight against an enemy like this."
Annabeth tilted her head to the side, intrigued. "You haven't been Alpha for very long?"
"Just a few weeks." Scott huffed out a humourless laugh. "I don't know the first thing about being an Alpha. Derek's here to help, of course, but ultimately I know it all comes down to me now. Everyone's going to follow my lead."
"Based on your actions today, it's a good lead to follow," Percy said sincerely.
"I didn't do anything today, that was all you guys -"
"We wouldn't have gotten Frank and Hazel back without your help," Percy insisted. "You did a lot for us today, and we really appreciate it."
Scott ducked his head and smiled shyly. "Thanks."
Annabeth tossed her empty cup back and forth between her hands. "Do you think the Nemeton has anything to do with why Lycaon's here?"
Scott's head whipped up, and his soft brown eyes were wide. "It could be - The Nemeton, it's… it's sort of just been woken up. We woke it up. There was this Druid, she had our parents, we had to do this ritual to figure out where they were -"
"Who's we?" Annabeth asked.
"Me, Allison, Stiles." Scott ran a hand through his hair. "Deaton said that there'd be side effects…"
Scott's shoulders slumped forward. He looked small and sad, head bowed and limbs curled in.
"Whatever's going on with Lycaon, it's not your fault," Percy said softly.
Scott looked up, locking gazes with him. Something unsaid passed between the two boys, and then Scott smiled a lopsided smile that was scarily familiar.
"What in God's name are you all doing awake?" Melissa appeared in the doorway, hands on hips. "I know that there's a new supernatural threat in town but that doesn't mean you don't have school in the morning, Scott."
"Aw, mom!" he whined, tossing his head back.
"We do, too," Percy said, stretching and cracking his back. "We should try to get some sleep."
Annabeth frowned. "What? Why do we have school?"
Percy looked at her like it was obvious. "Because Frank and Hazel need to rest, which means they can keep an eye on things here, and we need to stay close to Scott and the rest of the pack."
It was obvious.
Annabeth swore in Ancient Greek while Scott laughed.
Percy smirked. "I want you to remember this, Scott. That's Annabeth speak for 'You're right, Percy, wow you're so smart, why didn't I think of that first?'"
Annabeth scowled. "Shut up, Seaweed Brain."
He laughed and tugged the blanket out from under her hips.
Melissa smiled, a little exasperated and a lot fond. It was the sort of smile that Sally often wore. "Goodnight, you two. I'll wake you up at the same time as Scott."
"I can't believe you're making me go to school," Scott whined as he trailed after Melissa, dropping their cups in the sink on the way. "I have to protect the town."
"You can protect the town outside of school hours," Melissa said.
Percy chuckled as he switched the light off. "Am I back on the air mattress?"
"Get over here." Annabeth held her arms out to him, smiling as he settled onto the couch with her. "Just try not to drool in my hair."
"Oh, one time."