AN: I could have sworn I remember making a promise to myself that I'd update faster… *shrugs* Whoops.
OH MY GODS, GUYS. We've got 102 favorites on this fic. That's so awesome, guys. Thank you. You're all the best.
To writingmermaid: Thank you for your review and your suggestion, but I already know how this story is going to end. :)
To isamags2: Thank you!
To HydraCourt: Here, have a tissue.
To p3.25: Their connection has grown stronger, especially after Bianca's death. Percy's apartment is just above Annabeth's, so it's close enough for her to be solid in there. If one of them were to step out, however, at this point in their relationship, Annabeth will disappear. The range will only grow as they grow closer.
To liaregie: There will probably be at least five more chapters, though I really don't know after that. XD
From Guest: Interesting story so far but why in the world is 90% of the characters gay or bi?
To Guest: Annabeth is straight. Percy is straight. Jason is straight. Rachel is straight. Piper is straight. Hazel is straight. Frank is straight. Luke is straight. Katie is straight. Argus is straight. Tyson is straight. Silena is straight. Thalia is straight. Bobby is straight. Matthew is straight. Frederick is straight. Leo is straight. Calypso is pan.
I'm so incredibly sorry for offending you. I know how straight, cis people never, ever get any representation in the media. Truly, it is a shame. ;(
WARNING: Blood and discussion of domestic abuse happen in this chapter. If that triggers anything, then please. DO NOT READ.
2015
"So…you and Calypso, huh?"
Annabeth hands the correct amount of money to Mellie and snatches the two cups of coffee. Percy picks up his own off the counter.
"You don't have to make it sound like we're dating," she says, rolling her eyes. Percy looks pointedly at the two coffees in her hands as they walk toward the door. She sighs. "I'm straight, Percy," she states as they exit the Coffee Cloud.
He holds up his hand in surrender. "Sorry."
"It'd be early for that, anyway, if I was interested," Annabeth says. "It's only been two days since…You know."
Percy nods solemnly. "Yeah," he agrees. "Any particular reason she left her house?"
"Her dad's a jerk. He–"
"Wait." He places a hand on her arm and stops walking. She raises an eyebrow at him.
"What?"
"Calypso…actually told you about her dad?"
"Yes…" she says slowly. "And why is this important…?"
"Calypso never talks about her parents. Bianca and Leo had never even met them, and she and Bianca dated for a year."
He takes his hand from her arm, and they're on their way again. "Well, from what I understand, her dad's an asshole. Her mom probably is, too, if she has one. Maybe Calypso thought asshole parents were deal breakers?" she adds. "I don't know."
Percy nods absent-mindedly, obviously lost in thought. Then, he gasps and quickly grabs her shoulder, stopping her. Again.
"What?" she asks irritably.
"What if…" he starts. He looks around before leaning in real close, like he's scared of someone overhearing. "What if her parents abuse her?" he whispers, eyes wide with worry.
Annabeth's eyes widen, too. "Like…hit her?" He nods, and a frightening image of Calypso bloody, on the floor with a faceless man standing over her comes to her mind. She's never remembered Calypso limping or not being able to twist a certain way, but could that have really happened at some point?
Her mind turns to her parents. She remembers the early mornings Athena had to do to cover up her bruises. She remembers how both of them would shy away from the topic of their spouse.
Calypso's never shied away from talking about her parents, per say, she's just…really good at avoiding speaking of them. Better than Annabeth, probably. Even though make-up has evolved in the past 124 years, if her parents really abused her, then they probably wouldn't have cared that much to get water proof (er, well, snow proof) make-up.
"Nah," she says, crumpling up her now-empty cup and placing it in a trash can. "I think they're just assholes. Maybe the I told you so, slightly verbal abusive kind, but not physically abusive."
He raises his eyebrows questionably. "And that's better?"
She doesn't respond. Would it be better? She'll have to ask Calypso about it sometime. Subtly.
"I'm going to have to visit Hephaestus sometime," Percy says, not so subtly. "He'll be…lonely, without Leo, probably." Annabeth nods in agreement, and they fall into silence.
Percy's holding his warm cup like it's his lifeline, and he's shivering ever so slightly from the cold weather, but he's actually dressed for it. He's got an ugly purple-and-neon-green wool scarf that was probably knit by a grandmother and a pair of jeans with a matching color scheme from paint. (Annabeth can't complain too much about the latter, though, since these jeans fit his legs rather nicely.)
"Were you?" he says suddenly.
She snaps her eyes up her his, glad she can't blush, or else she'd be beat red. "Hmm?"
"Lonely? Were you lonely, when your family died?"
She's quiet for a moment. She thinks of the emptiness in her chest when she could do nothing watch, after they died and while they were alive. She thinks of roughly 45,290 nights spent with only her thoughts as company.
"Yeah," she admits in a mumble. "Yeah, I was."
He clears his throat. "Back when…The day Bianca died, I overheard you saying that you're brother…killed people."
"Yes," she drawls. Where is he going with this?
"If you don't mind me asking…who did he kill?"
"He shot and killed m–two girls."
"Not your parents?"
"No," Annabeth says, maybe a little too quickly, but it's still true. "Why would you think that?"
"Well, since you said your parents died, I was wondering if your brother was the one who killed them. Like, some sort of crazed depression after your other brothers died in the army."
"No. It was two teenage girls from our hometown."
"Did you know either of them?"
"Yeah. The second one, Lou Ellen…She was my–erm–friend."
"And the first one? Do you know her?"
She looks down at her gloved hands. "Not anymore," she mumbles.
"But…you did?"
She ducks her head, and then plays with Leo's ring still around her neck. "I'm not sure."
Percy opens his mouth to say something else, but he seems to think better of it when he catches her strong I-don't-want-to-walk-about-it vibe. He throws his now-empty coffee cup in a garbage can.
They nearly get hit by a crazy driver while crossing the street. Annabeth flips him off, subtly, because Percy isn't ecstatic about rude gestures. But she's grumpy, and she wouldn't appreciate being killed. Again.
The two of them half to step into the virtually empty parking lot of a Kohl's to avoid being flattened by rush-hour traffic. This is obviously a fancy Kohl's, as music plays from speakers dotted around the parking lot.
"Oh!" Percy gasps. "I love this song!"
Annabeth strains her ears hear–it's something about feelings and telling you things he never told you. Percy rushes past her, busting out a move underneath the sprinkler.
"What," Annabeth says with a raised eyebrow when he starts attempting the sprinkler, "the fuck are you doing?"
He just grins at her. He stops doing the sprinkler (thank God), but then he's mimicking swinging a lasso.
She starts, "Don't you dare–" He throws the invisible lasso at her and pretends to pull her towards him. "No," she says firmly, keeping her feet planted.
"Oh, come on!" he whines. "I love this song! And it's almost over anyway."
Annabeth gets ready to shoot him down again, but then he clasps his hands together and sticks out his bottom lip, and plain out pouts at her. She blinks.
"Fine," she sighs.
"Yay!" he squeals. He allows her to place Calypso's drink safely on the sidewalk before he grabs her hand and drags her under the speaker. He starts up the sprinkler again.
"This is humiliating," she says, though she tries to mimic his dance moves anyway. It feels like she's betraying Leo when she gins, but she's been a desperate need of fun lately. She can't cry from her contradicting emotions. Which is good, because she doesn't want Percy to feel like it's his fault if she were to randomly burst into tears.
Just as she's about to go into the only other dance move she knows–the shopping cart, as she was awkward during her dance lessons when she was alive–Percy's hand snatches hers out of the air, and he twirls her.
"This is fun," he corrects. He twirls her again before pulling her into an off-beat waltz.
His hands go to her shoulders because of the height difference, while hers go to his waist. They dance in a simple box step that doesn't go with the fast song. She ducks her head, glad for the thousandth time she can't blush or feel the heat of his hands through her shirt.
When the tune fades, she pushes him off, even though the next song is perfect for slow dancing.
He places a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. "Why can't a guy just dance with his friend without being rejected?" he says tearfully.
"Because you're a terrible dancer," she replies with an eye roll, though her heart squeezes at the alienated term. Friend.
(God, she's so hopelessly stuck in the friend-zone.)
Annabeth strolls back to the sidewalk and picks up Calypso's cup. He follows.
"You're the terrible dancer," he insists, jabbing her with his elbow playfully.
"Oh, please. My toes sting from how many times you stepped on them."
"Well, my shins are going to have bruises for weeks."
"You–" She's cut off by his phone ringing. He holds up a finger for a one second gesture, and takes his phone out of his pocket.
"It's Rachel," Percy says apologetically.
Those two words take all the teasing out of her. She waves off his comment, feigning nonchalance. "It's okay. Go take it," she insists.
He smiles thankfully at her, moves a few paces away, and holds the cellphone up to his ear. Annabeth can't hear him too well over Adele's Hello (a song Leo showed her), but she catches snip bits of words like "date" and "movie" and "tonight."
She lets her shoulders sag and scuffs the heel of her sneaker against the pavement, and pretends not to hear Rachel make Percy happy.
;
1891
A scream is ripped from Annabeth's throat as Lou Ellen's body falls to the ground. Luke wipes his gun of any splattered blood before approaching the Sheriff's daughter.
"YOU!" Annabeth bellows, not being able to get any more words over the lump of hostility formed in her throat. Fists balled, she launches herself at her brother, but she tumbles to the ground on the other side of him.
Luke turns over Lou Ellen's body, looking guilty. Good, Annabeth thinks. I hope he carries that guilt for the rest of his life. I hope it weighs him down and down and down before he collapses under the weight of it.
Killing Annabeth happened because Luke was drunk and in love. Killing Lou Ellen, however, happened because he didn't want to take responsibility for his actions.
"Bastard!" Annabeth yells in Luke's ear, but he continues to stoically unwrap the bindings from Lou Ellen's wrists. He stands up and tucks the rope in his pocket, smearing his nightclothes with blood.
"I'm sorry," Luke whispers, brokenly, before turning his back to the body and climbing out the ditch. He disappears into the woods, and is it bad that Annabeth hopes for him to be mauled by a woodland creature?
Whatever.
Annabeth turns to Lou Ellen, and gags. Lou Ellen's body is much more mutilated than Annabeth's was, with chunks of flesh completely blown off. Half of her throat is missing from a gunshot.
Still, she approaches the body. She reaches out slowly, and, yep, she can touch it.
Annabeth has found that she can touch objects, not people. That means that Lou Ellen–her body–this human being that had been alive, breathing just moments ago was dead.
"Idiot," she hisses. Stupid Lou Ellen, getting tangled in this homicide just to find Annabeth's killer. Stupid of her. Completely stupid.
…Annabeth doesn't think she's ever had a truer friend.
She wants to cry. She wants to throw up.
A throbbing starts up in her forehead because, dammit, she really needs to cry. No tears flow out of her tear ducts, and she doesn't need to breathe, so she has to work hard to sob. She rests her forehead on the dirt and screams in frustration into the grass.
She goes to blindly fumble for Lou Ellen's hand, still warm only because of her own split blood, but then she feels mist on her fingertips.
Picking her head up, she sees a comet's trail smoke up from Lou Ellen's body. It arcs to the right of it, where the mist pools and swirls in an almost human-like shape. Annabeth stares, flummoxed, as the mist takes on color and grows thicker.
Soon, Lou Ellen's…ghost, Annabeth supposes, is lying next to her body. They're exact parallels of each other, except for the ragged patches of scar tissue spanned over her neck and everywhere else Luke shot.
She can't believe her eyes, but then she remembers Cupid's words: "That would be your brother's doing, my dear. He threw your body in a ditch, but didn't bury you. Now your soul wanders aimlessly, never being able to touch another, searching for something that will make you whole again."
Lou Ellen will be in the same suspended oblivion as she.
Hesitantly, she reaches out to touch phantom-Lou Ellen. Once her longest finger makes contact with her arm, Lou Ellen's eyes fly open and she gasps in a breath she doesn't need.
"Wh-what?" Lou Ellen's eyes flit around, trying to deduct what happened to her, while more words come tumbling out of her mouth. "Wha's goin'–How–Where–What the hell–"
Then, her gaze finds Annabeth, and she swears the girl's face almost splits in half with how wide she's grinning. She's tackled with a hug that causes her to fall flat on her back.
"Annabeth!" Lou Ellen cries, wrapping her arms around Annabeth's shoulders and burying her face in her curly hair. "You're okay! Ya–You're–Oh my God. You're alive!"
"Um, not quite," she admits. She tries to pry the other girl off her, but Lou Ellen has a vice grip on her.
Lou Ellen shakes and sobs and hiccups into her shoulder. "Why can't I…" she starts, pulling back to look Annabeth in the eye, but she pauses to suck in a breath. She frowns as she obviously realizes there's something wrong with her breathing, and Annabeth looks at her sympathetically. "Why can't I cry?"
"I'm sorry," Annabeth murmurs. Lou Ellen stares at her quizzically before Annabeth directs her attention to the body.
Lou Ellen claps a hand over her mouth to muffle a scream. She scrambles off of Annabeth, trying to get as far away from the–her own body as possible.
"Annabeth," Lou Ellen says slowly as she stares at her body with wide, haunted eyes, "wh-what's going on? Is that–Oh my God. Is that me?!"
"Um…Yes," she says lamely. (There really is no easy way to tell a person they're dead, is there?)
"B-but–" Lou Ellen stares at her hands, flipping them over to make sure they're real. "But how?"
"It's, um…" Annabeth crouches in front of her, trying to come up with a way to break the news. "Try ta remember."
Hesitantly, the Sheriff's daughter looks past the blonde's shoulder, gazing at the body. Her eyes glaze over in concentration, before they widen in dismay and a strangled gasp rips from her throat.
"Your brother, Luke. He-he–"
Lou Ellen didn't seem to be able to get the words out, so Annabeth nodded. "He killed you," she confirmed slowly. "An' me. An' since he didn't bury us, and nobody else did…We can't go to Heaven, and we didn't even make't ta Hell."
The Sheriff's daughter stares at Annabeth for a long moment, like she's trying to figure out if this is some elaborate prank. She seems to find nothing but earnest intentions written all over Annabeth's face, and takes a deep, shuttering breath she doesn't need.
"What…What are you saying?" she asks, sounding like she knows the answer already.
Annabeth shrugs.
"Welcome to Oblivion."
;
2015
"See you later?" Percy inquires.
Annabeth shoots him a smile. He's going through the lobby like a normal person, while she's climbing up the fire escape again, like a…not-so-normal person.
"Definitely," she assures him. She spots a red sports car rounding the corner–not Rachel's, but close–and remembers. She clears her throat. "You, uh, have fun on your date," she says, though her hands tighten around Calypso's cup.
Oh, shit, Calypso!
How could she have forgotten? Calypso won't be able to see her if Percy and Rachel are going to a movie theatre miles away. Her new roommate probably wouldn't appreciate a drop 'n' ditch.
"What are you and Rachel doing, anyway, this evening?" Annabeth asks, subtle as a bull. Smooth, Chase, real fucking smooth.
"Oh, nothing much." He shrugs. "Rachel wants to re-watch all the Hunger Games movies before we go see Mockingjay Part Two. We'll be watching it in my apartment, since, you know, she talks about her family as much as you and Calypso talk about yours."
She doesn't catch his you know you can open up to me vibe, as she's sighing in relief. If he was just going to be in the Jackson apartment, good.
Their connection had gotten stronger since she and Percy met. After Bianca died and she comforted him, people could see her in her apartment while Percy was in his. But if one of them left–even just to go in the hall of the complex–than Annabeth would start disappearing.
"Well," Annabeth says, "hope it goes well. Bye." She ducks her head and starts climbing (single-handedly) before Percy can tell she's lying.
"Bye," he calls after her.
She waits on the fire escape until she hears Sally's voice flit through the open window, greeting her son. She flies a bit to help herself for the last ladder, and slides open her window.
"Hey," Annabeth greets, stepping onto the floor. This is the first time she's been able to greet someone living in her home alongside her since she's been dead, and Calypso isn't even in the main room. Figures.
"Sorry, but your coffee's cold," she says louder. "The walk back took a bit longer than expected. Percy and I got…distracted."
She wanders deeper into the apartment, shedding her hat and boots and shaking the snow out of her hair.
"Calypso?" Annabeth frowns when she doesn't find her roommate in the kitchen. Could she still be using the Jackson's bathroom?
She goes to check the extra bedroom she hasn't touched in twenty years, but, passing down the hall, she hears a sound come from the bathroom. She backtracks and presses her ear to the door.
Gut wrenching sobs come through the wood. Annabeth winces, then tentatively knocks on the door. "Calypso?"
The sobbing stops almost instantly. There's a clatter as Calypso probably jumps in surprise, banging a knee or an elbow on the toilet Annabeth also hasn't touched in twenty years. Calypso is too busy sniffling and hiccupping to answer.
"I'm coming in, okay?" she says, giving the other girl a warning in case she had been crying against the door.
It's locked, so Annabeth phases her hand through the doorknob. She fumbles around–careful not to have her hand peek out the other side of the door–until her fingers close around the actual locking mechanism and turns it. She takes her hand back.
Tentatively, she nudges open the door. Calypso's got her head buried between her knees, leaning against the bathtub. She looks up when she hears the hinges creak.
Annabeth hesitates. "I know that the toilet doesn't work, but it's not really something to cry about," she jokes.
That earns her a bitter laugh and a tired, half-assed smile. Calypso wipes a few tears from under her red-brimmed eyes. "Yeah," she mutters. "Because that's what I'm crying about."
She furrows her eyebrows, staring at the doorknob. "I thought I locked that," she murmurs.
"The locks work as well as the electricity," Annabeth lies. She fully enters the bathroom, and slides down next to Calypso. She mimics her position, wrapping her arms around her knees.
"You look like you need a hug," she observes.
"A hug would be nice," Calypso admits hoarsely. Annabeth lets her rest her head on her knees and wraps an arm around the other girl's shoulders. "You're freezing."
Annabeth shrugs. "I get that a lot," she says. "You wanna talk about it?"
"No."
"Oka–"
"I talked about my family to Bianca and Leo once, each. Both of them said, 'Oh, they can't be that bad. They love you, because that's what a family does.'"
"Aren't both of their families pretty fucked up?"
"Yeah, especially now that the two of them are…" Calypso chokes on a sob. "But there's a lot of love going around in their houses. For me, not so much. Not real love. Just, 'We have these expectations, these rules, because we love you.' 'This is for your own good.'"
"Do they…" Annabeth pauses, trying to find a way to ask her question subtlety. "Do they ever hit you?"
"What?!" Calypso's eyes snap up to hers, startled, and she lifts herself from Annabeth's person. "No! Of course they don't."
She holds up her hands in surrender. "Sorry. I was just…wondering."
"Why?" Calypso peers up at her. Realization crosses her face, and she tenses. "Did your parents hit you?"
Annabeth winces, wondering how to spin this one. Annabeth had gotten whippings whenever she deserved them, but it was legal back then. Every misbehaving kid got them. It wasn't considered abuse back in the 1800s. "No. Not me specifically, but…my dad used to hit my mom. It didn't make for a happy household while that happened."
Calypso nods, relaxing, as if the thought of Annabeth getting beaten truly terrifies her. She's quite…touched, by the concern.
"Whatever happened to your parents, anyway?" Calypso asks.
"They died."
"How did they die?"
Annabeth squirms, avoiding looking at the other girl. "They, uh…died." Calypso opens her mouth to ask more questions, but Annabeth springs to her feet. "Hey, are you hungry? I'm hungry. Sally got me a whole bunch of crackers and dried fruit a while back. Let's go eat that!"
She practically sprints out the door. Smooth, Chase, real fucking smooth.
;
After they finish eating (which translates to: Calypso being the only one really eating while Annabeth nibbled on some crackers to pretend she needs to eat) it's dark.
"I think I'm going to retire early," Calypso yawns, stretching her arms above her head. Annabeth nods in agreement.
She snatches up her only pair of pajamas and changes in the bathroom. She really doesn't want Calypso to see her massive scar, not after the talk about not being abused they just had.
"Ummm…Annabeth?" Calypso says as the other girl renters the room.
"Hmm?"
"You only have one mattress."
Oh. Right.
Annabeth shrugs. "I'll take the floor, then," she volunteers.
"Oh, no. I can't let you do that," Calypso protests. "This is your home, so–"
"Calypso," she says, placing a hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "Really, it's fine. I don't sleep much, anyway."
"You're insomniac?" Calypso asks, getting a worried look on her face again.
I haven't had a wink of sleep in over a hundred years, so, yes. Very insomniac. Annabeth shrugs again. "Yeah, I guess. I won't sleep any better on the mattress than I will on the carpet, anyway."
Calypso wrings her hands together and bites her lip. "If you say so."
The shorter girl is so tired from her impromptu move that she doesn't have the energy to argue anymore, and is asleep seconds after her head hits the pillow.
Annabeth lays on the floor, a blanket over her body and a pillow under her head. She watches the shadows dance on the ceiling.
She's going to have to be extremely careful, now that Calypso's here. She doesn't think she'd be able to distract Calypso with dried fruit if she were to suddenly disappear into thin air, and she doubts the shorter girl would believe she's becoming a magician.
She's going to have to learn Percy's schedule, inside and out. Hopefully not to "stalker ex-girlfriend" levels, but if it does get to that point…Well, an undead phantom's gotta do what an undead phantom's gotta do.
Calypso suddenly mutters something in her sleep. She rolls over, throwing an arm over the edge of the mattress. Her hand splays slightly over Annabeth's stomach for a moment, until her fingers phase through her ribcage.
Panic seizes her.
Percy's stepped out of his apartment.
Annabeth waits for Calypso to wake up, freak out, but she only snorts in her sleep. A door shuts on the floor above, and Annabeth feels Percy. Calypso's fingers are pushed out of her torso by her body's sudden solidarity.
She heaves a breath of relief.
Oh, what has she gotten herself into?
AN: The 1891 segment was going to be longer, but I really wanted to get this out today, so, until next time, folks!
This was not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. If you see any spelling or grammatical errors, please inform me so I may fix them.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson, Kohl's, Maroon Five's Feelings, or Adele's Hello. The title for this fic was taken from Bastille's Laura Palmer, which I also do not own.
Constructive criticism is welcome, and reviews will help Annabeth and company stop Cupid!