Author's note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Characters, world, and some referenced plot points Uncle Rick's and not my own!

Content Warnings: NA

A Very Normal Fear

"Come on, Seaweed Brain."

"What?" Percy asked, sitting up groggily on the couch where he was sleeping. It didn't take him long to recognize Annabeth standing before him, her outline familiar even in the dark. "You alright?"

"I'm sneaking you back to your room," she informed him.

"What?" Percy asked.

"I can't sleep knowing you're on the couch, I feel guilty," Annabeth said. "Which is a shame since your bed is so comfortable."

When the sky had split open and started pouring itself empty a few hours ago, Sally had said that there was no way Annabeth was transiting back to school in this kind of weather—and with the Prius still in the shop from its misadventure with Apollo, there wasn't a chance of her hitching a ride back to her dorms either. So, Sally had said that she could take Percy's bed and stay the night. Hence her standing in his living room in the middle of the living room, bundled up in one of his camp t-shirts after changing out of her own and a pair of flannel pajamas that were satisfyingly too big for her.

"The couch is fine," Percy promised—both because the couch was fine and because he was still recovering from the profound chewing out they'd earned from Coach Hedge on the Argo II last summer. His mom wasn't much of a yeller of course, but the mere idea of disappointing her was about as painful as a stab right in the Achilles' heel.

"There's only one bed in there," he said.

"When has that ever stopped us?" Annabeth asked. He blushed, but she had a point.

"But my mom…" he said.

"I set my phone's alarm for 6:00 AM, we'll smuggle you back to the living room before she's awake," Annabeth said.

"You really don't fear my mother, do you?" Percy asked.

"I have the advantage of being the daughter she never had, and not the son she had to single-handedly whip into something respectable," Annabeth said.

"You're going to be so screwed when the baby gets here and changes that."

"Deeply, but that's a problem for Future Annabeth," she said. She extended her hand. "Come on, Seaweed Brain."

This time he did take her hand and followed her back to his room, their bare feet light against the floorboards. They didn't need to flick on the light when they got back to his room, the layout of it was so familiar. He shut the door behind them quietly and crawled into bed before pulling their blankets over themselves. His bed was closer to a window than the couch was, so the rain seemed especially loud as it pitter-pattered against the glass. He lay his head down on his pillow and pulled Annabeth against him once she'd finished rearranging the blankets over them. The pillows already smelled like lemon shampoo from the half-hour she'd spent in bed already. She'd probably dropped a dozen bobby pins in his sheets, too.

"Isn't this better?" she said, snuggling against him more as if she possibly needed to make her point any clearer.

"You're right," he said.

"I'm usually right."

"Not always."

"I said usually," she said. "Which makes me right again."

"I'm going back to the living room—"

"No, stay," Annabeth said, laughing, pulling him back against her.

"Well then be quiet," Percy said. "And start praying that my mom didn't hear you laughing."

"To who?"

"Nevermind, don't pray. We don't need them involved."

Annabeth laughed again, muffling the sound in a pillow this time, and Percy smiled before kissing the spot on the back of her ear she liked because he could. Then a peal of lightning cut right through the usual Manhattan sounds of traffic and pedestrians, and shattered the moment when Percy startled back.

"Are you alright?" Annabeth asked, sitting up and twisting to face him.

"Yeah, just…" Percy trailed off, chewing his lip. He did what his mom had taught him to do when he'd been little; counting the seconds until the roll of thunder bookended the spike in the storm. That's how far the lightning is; so far from us, sweetheart, Mom would always say.

Annabeth hadn't looked away from him, facing him in the dark.

"Percy?" she asked again.

"Yeah, I'm fine—I'm okay, I promise. Thunderstorms just freak me out," he admitted before she started freaking out too. They had such similar fears and nightmares, since they'd gone through such similar things. This one was his own.

"Because of Zeus?" she asked, reaching out to take his hand under the blankets.

"No, I was afraid of thunder storms even before I was claimed," Percy said.

"I was afraid of spiders before I was claimed," Annabeth said. "That doesn't mean the gods didn't have anything to do with it."

"I guess that's true," Percy said. He relaxed as her thumb traced circles on the back of his hand, one of the only places there that didn't have calluses.

"Anything I can do?" she asked.

"Not really," Percy said. "They kind of just have to happen."

"Alright," she said. "I was hoping there would be something since this isn't one of the more existential fears we have to deal with."

Percy laughed a little bit until another boom of lightning had him startling again. Annabeth squeezed his hand to ground him and then ran her other hand up and down his arm. It was in moments like these, when she got all soft in the dark, that he remembered that she was a big sister and camp counsellor too—not just his kickass girlfriend.

"I always thought it was silly to have normal fears in a world where Tartarus is spitting out gorgons, but I guess it's nice," Percy said. "Very human of me."

"Yes, because you're usually so godly," Annabeth said with a smile. She gently pressed against his chest to get him to lay down again before laying down herself. "Come here, you're the little spoon now."

"Oh, that helps," Percy amended as she wrapped her arms around his chest to pull him against her. He melted against her happily, even if he was huge compared to her. She kissed his shoulder.

"Goodnight then, Seaweed Brain," she said.

WC: 1037