"Baby, you're like lightning in a bottle

I can't let you go now that I got it"

~Electric Love by BORNS

It's Percy's 27th birthday so you all get an extra chapter. Enjoy!

Thanks to luv2read4reading (writing that scene made me tear up ngl), imjusthtereforpercabeth (i am...), and CrackHeadBlonde (he doessss) for your comments last chapter!

ci.

Percy wants to keep driving, because he doesn't know whether more agents are on their pursuit, but Annabeth convinces him to at least take a nap. She offers to drive, too, but he won't even hear it.

You need all your energy , he says, you need rest . She thinks that he makes a perfect mother hen. Previously, only Will Solace holds that title in her life.

Nonetheless, with their seats reclined and both ready for sleep, he maneuvers in the tight space to lay on his side and stares at her.

"What are you thinking?" Annabeth asks.

Percy wordlessly takes her hand, and guides it to the small of his back. Annabeth does not understand it at first, but his hand stops, and she feels a tingle that runs up her spine. She's sure that he feels it, too.

It's his Achilles heel; it's nothing she doesn't already know, but he is openly conveying all of his vulnerability to her. Annabeth holds his life in her hands: she has the power to end his millenniums-long existence with the push of a finger, just like that.

"Why?" She asks, not wanting to undermine the significance of this moment.

"I just want you to remember. Remember how I wish we can just stay here. Build a home. Away from our world; somewhere safe, somewhere happy, somewhere no one can bother us. Somewhere out of the grasp of Olympus."

"Would you give all that up for me?"

"Yeah… Yeah I would." He says without hesitation. "I don't want an eternity without you." That scares her.

"But you can't," Annabeth counters, hoping that Percy would disagree.

"No… I can't." He doesn't correct her.

She takes her hand out of his grasp, feeling odd when she feels that the only vulnerable one here is herself, not him. Mind over matter , children of Athena always say, but nothing she wills in her mind can change the matter at hand.

Beyond that, Annabeth feels betrayed that she is also secretly relieved. If they don't stay in Alaska, then he can't give his godhood up for her. She knows that she won't be able to meet Percy's expectations, anyway.

She's just a disappointment in the end. It's been proven many times.

cii.

"You made the right decision," Percy says. It's been another couple of days.

"What?"

"Not becoming a god - you made the right decision."

"What do you mean?" Annabeth doesn't now how their conversation evolved to touch on this. Mostly, they've just been exchanging mundane little stories about their respective lives.

"I am freer than I ever had been in a long time, here. I'm not under Zeus' control. I usually can't even say his name without fearing that he would give me undue attention and punish me for whatever he decides to on a whim. I feel things, Annabeth, when I couldn't before."

She frowns. "I didn't know that you couldn't feel before."

"I could, it's… It's difficult to explain." He runs a hand through his hair. "Emotions were exhausting to me, but now they make me feel alive. Electric. I want to live; I don't want to just exist . Being with you made me feel human and I liked that, and now, I'm mortal, at least more or less so, and it's killing me in the best way because it hurts. It's painful. But it's so precious for me. I'm here and present and feeling and I don't want it to end. Gods, I'm sorry for rambling. Does this even make sense?" He asks, eyes begging her to understand.

She would like to think she does, but hasn't she just been trying to exist and survive, too? Living is a luxury reserved for secure and well-off mortals only.

But maybe Percy is referring to something else, too - she sees an urgency in him during the past week that she seldom gets glimpses of before. There's an eagerness in the way that he kisses her, an excitement when he reveres and ravishes her body (very carefully avoiding her injuries) when they finally find a motel to spend the night instead of camping out in the car again. He feels so alive, and the Perseus she is used to feels muted around the edges.

The god was fun, and teased her at the right times, but she was pretty sure he wouldn't have the capacity to love her (really, really love her), or tried to get her to promise her to not save him again, or asked her all these questions about how she felt and then shared this multitude of complex emotions together.

This one blushes red, and his eyes and tears don't glow. He is always alert and attentive, and he feels like an equal. This Percy treasures every second of every minute of every hour of the day in a unique way that someone does when they know that time is a limited and a valued currency. (A currency where there are ends in sight, a currency where a poor man can comprehend much better and treasure than a billionaire ever can.)

Annabeth can tell that despite all of these things, this Percy is fearful of the emotions he now experiences. When he speaks, there is a bitterness undertone directed at Olympus and to his former being, and she knows that he is fearful of the implications of those thoughts. The very, very dangerous thoughts of betrayals and thoughts that can unravel his own nature: she sees him snuffing them out as soon as he spots them.

They don't talk about it, but she knows him well enough to see it in his human eyes.

But still, he doesn't think they can stay. And she doesn't either. So they don't talk about this as his foot remains on the gas pedal, racing towards the land that Olympus controls once again.

ciii.

He's been glowing more and more, steadily, and he warns her to avert her eyes well before they cross the state line. Once they do, he will become a full-fledged god again, and he doesn't want to burn her away with his essence.

But before they cross the border, he stops the car and pulls over. He steps out and opens the car's door on her side. If the cold air bothers him, Percy doesn't show. He stands on the roadside, shielding her from the wind with his body.

"I love you with my entire being," he declares. "Right now, all of me, all of my essence, copies, physical manifestations - concentrated, right here . I am all here, and I love you, Annabeth Chase."

She puts her hand on his cheeks, barely making a shadow in his golden brilliance.

Annabeth looks at him in the eyes, squinting from the brightness and the light - they have begun to look like the ocean and storms and tides again - and kisses him. She tries to hold her tears in.

Maybe she doesn't know him well enough to love him, but she does anyway. Annabeth loves him so much her heart aches.

But she doesn't tell him how she feels because she doesn't have the ability to. Annabeth isn't ready because anything and anyone she loves leaves. Love is transient and elusive and she doesn't need to know how Aphrodite is to figure out this tenant (an immutable truth) for herself. And really, she can't and shouldn't tell Percy that she loves him, because if they loved each other and if she admits it, then they'll have to pay for that.

Talking makes things real, and real things end.

That's just the way how tragedies of heroes go.

civ. - tw: self harm, kind of

"You'll be safe here," Percy says and she feels him step away, his warmth fading. "You can open your eyes now. I split myself so I can find my father. I need to make a case with him first before notifying the other gods."

Annabeth blinks and breathes in deeply; she hasn't been back in her apartment since before the Solstice. It's been only three weeks or so, but that seems like a lifetime ago.

She can also really use a shower.

Annabeth blinks again to adjust her eyes to the darkness of the room, and she almost doesn't notice what Percy is doing until she sees a glint of bronze from a brief reflection of a sword he picked up from her living room floor, somewhere beneath her couch.

He slices his arm, inflicting a generous wound on himself.

"Percy, what are you doing?!"

Ichor flows freely from his forearm; Annabeth notices that the cut he inflicts upon himself is deep. He's taken care to miss his veins (if gods have those - Annabeth had never been sure on how closely human anatomy actually mimics the gods') but the wound is deep. He doesn't flinch, only frowning slightly when he sees the evidence of his divinity once again.

He walks to her windows in the living room, and smears .

"My landlord is going to kill me for that, Percy."

"Better him than anyone else," he replies, but there is no humor in his voice. "I don't want you hurt ever again, especially not for anything relating to me. I won't be able to forgive myself."

"This wasn't about you, Percy."

"You're saying that Sam didn't tell those humans about you because he was jealous of the attention you are receiving from me?" Percy says, venom dripping from his voice. "He is lucky that smiting him is currently not on the top of my to-do list."

"You don't mean that. And don't hurt Sam, please." Annabeth says, suddenly nervous. She nearly hints that Sam's bitterness is justified, but gods don't take kindly to things like this, and what Sam did… Well, it's a breach of loyalty. It doesn't matter whose child he is. And no matter what, Percy is a god: Annabeth is well aware that there is another side of him that he had carefully hid from her. She needs to tread carefully.

"He needs to be taught a lesson," Percy says murderously, stalking to her bedroom to smear more of his ichor on the window sills.

"Maybe, but he doesn't need to pay with his life. That won't change his mind. You inflicting pain on him is not going to teach him anything. You'll just make him more resentful and Alyssa will be, too."

"Alyssa is obedient; she won't do anything like that."

"Percy, please." Annabeth begs, pouring emotion into her voice. She doesn't know how much time they have, and the god she loves doesn't seem inclined to listen to reason at the moment, "promise me that you won't hurt Sam."

Percy looks at her, his jaw flexing. He pushes past her and moves to her door. "Fine."

Annabeth knows it's not a promise on Styx, but she takes it. "Good. Now, can you let me know why you are doing this?"

"I'm leaving a piece of me behind with you. This whole building is protected; no one can come in or out without my knowledge, and, if they try to come and do anything to you, then they'll die. These fuckers in white better brace themselves, because we are in my territory now. I won't let anyone drag you to Alaska ever again."

"I can take care of myself." Annabeth says reflexively, but she knows that there is no use arguing with Percy once he's made up his mind, especially when he is wrathful.

cv.

"It's strange coming to camp with you," Annabeth admits as they come into existence next to Thalia's pine. "No one really knows about us, except Will and Grover."

"I doubt anyone would care to see us walk together. I'm not an Olympian, few probably have even heard of me. Plus, I'm sure you've walked in here with plenty of gods before." He says this so indifferently. Annabeth notices the change in the air between them.

He's aged himself in appearance by at least a decade, whether subconsciously or on purpose, and she takes a step away from him sometime before they pass the border. Maybe it's just the environment, but he feels so distanced all of a sudden.

There's something else, too. It's unsettling.

There's some intangible sense of familiarity that raises some hairs on the back of her neck. Hints of nostalgia and yearning rolls through her, feeling as if she's been on this little hill hundreds of times with him before.

Annabeth frowns before she shrugs to brush the feeling off. It's just a sliver of false memory. She walks on behind him.

A/N: Join my discord and follow my insta (starlinks dot art) if you wanna say hi :)

Also, I'd love to hear what you guys thought of this chapter! Speculations are more than welcome - I really want to hear from you guys! (Reviews make me jump in joy! I can use some of that; I mean it!)

P.S. is it a good idea for me to bind this into a physical book so I can hug it to sleep? haha