A/N: And… go.

July 13, 2020

Camp Half-Blood:
Dining Pavilion

Lunch went as expected, with me at my table, Annabeth at hers, and there was never a time where we exceeded five seconds of not meeting each other's eyes or staring and awkwardly turning away when the other was taking their turn. It didn't bother me yet, my being able to look at her without pain; it was okay because that feeling was covered by a wanting so strong that it hurt. It hurt to breathe when she would turn away, and blinking irritated my eyes because that was a brief moment were I wouldn't see her, and just being didn't make sense any more. Because she was right there and for whatever reason, I hadn't moved towards her yet and I just didn't know why.

I didn't know why she was being so difficult; I didn't know why I was allowing her to be stubborn. I didn't know why, I didn't get it, I didn't like it.

I remembered thinking that maybe if I waved or winked or something then she would finally recognize me and then, only then, she would talk to me and I could tell her how much I missed her. Not anyone else at camp, not anyone else—aside from my mom—but her. I wanted her and I wanted to have my head in her lap when I was taking a power nap because of my stupid Achilles' Heel and I wanted her to run her fingers through my hair and I wanted her knife to meet my blade for old times' sake and I wanted her… I wanted her to look at me and remember.

I didn't know why, but I wanted her to hate me, too.

I wanted her to think that I had left her and be so freaking pissed because that would mean that she cared. I wanted her to hate my guts for my thinking it was okay to disappear without a goodbye. And I wanted her to think I was the scum of the earth for breaking her heart.

But I wanted too much.

Because her face was a stone, beautifully carved into a glare. She was a rose, the blood red petals slowly blistering under a searing fire, popping and cracking and dissolving to nothing but a small pile of ash where a phoenix, cold and harsh, could rise and take my Annabeth's place. She was a stone, a precious gem, gleaming and fresh and real, but easy to injure yourself if you stumbled over a bad end. She was everything and nothing and so much, too much for my mind to process.

This was the Annabeth I had come back to.

But I still wanted her so bad.

I hadn't realized that there was a plate set before me full of food laid out by my hand until I finally tore my gaze from hers for that fraction of a second. Everyone was standing and shuffling around but the two of us, and I wondered what she had been thinking about. I cleared my throat and slipped into the line for dumping food into the bronze brazier for the gods. When my turn had come along, I did as was routine and dumped a strawberry oozing juice for Poseidon, then a crisped bread roll for Hades. And I prayed, long and hard, that one of them would take my burden and just give it to someone else because I couldn't take my Annabeth down to the Underworld where she would possibly wait for a near eternity to see me, if things happened to work out that way.

Annabeth must have caught me staring into the flames, my plate still poised for dumping food but my hand so readily stilled by thoughts. Her fingers brushed mine as she dumped a clump of berries slowly, her eyes trained on my face. She murmured something and I wasn't sure if it was to me or a god, but she quickly turned and set herself back in her seat, glancing at me once before bowing her head and eating.

I sat at my table quietly, noting Chiron's watchful gaze and ignoring it. My fork ran through my food but it hardly held my attention for more than a second as I continued my gazing at Annabeth. I could hear Mr. D standing, saying something that was obviously unimportant to him, but it made news to the campers. Some cheers went up and I couldn't be bothered to figure out why. Annabeth's face had lit up for a fraction of a second and then she looked at me and dimmed considerably.

But it was sadness, I noticed. Maybe longing, wistful thoughts like mine were.

She mouthed something to me, something I couldn't get my brain to process, words that were jumbled and confusing and altogether not real enough to affect me unless they were intimate in some way.

I mouthed the customary what? and she rolled her eyes, repeated herself, looked over at Malcolm who had tapped her arm. Everything was so fluid and steady and perfectly poised, like she had set up a strategy at making my stomach too weak to eat anymore. I had to set my fork down, push my plate away, lay my head on my table, breathe.

She was winning the unspoken contest of who could stay strong longest, like she knew I had a dead line and not taking action with her would simply save me too much heartbreak, the feeling of betrayal. I felt my breaths, shaky and weak and just not into the whole idea of needing oxygen to live. I felt my heart, slow and dull, drumming in my chest like it wanted to escape, like it hadn't been there in so long that it just didn't belong anymore. I didn't belong at camp; the air in my lungs, the beat of my heart, they didn't belong to me.

I almost dozed off with my self-loathing thoughts still scrambling what I had left of my dignity, my brain on overload with despising hatred. My eye lids were heavy and I knew that I hadn't slept in a number of years. I needed to take a nap, but the sun still ripened the skin on my neck with intense force.

Everything was so wrong.

Something shuffled on the table, something bare and unnoticeable had it not been so close and sudden. I glanced up, my mouth, my nose still buried behind my arms. Annabeth was towering over me; face that stone that was becoming so terribly familiar. Her eyes led a trail up to mine, heavy and closing. She extended a hand, something unexpected and different, that for all purposes I couldn't help but stare. She may have said words of encouragement, I wasn't listening to what was coming from her mouth, just acknowledging that she was there and she was real and that I was real and this whole place wasn't one of my secret longings as I stole souls for Hades. I took her palm, mine cold and clammy, hers warm and inviting. She may have smiled as she pulled me up, I couldn't remember. If she had, it was a fake one, half there, half unaware of everything around her. She didn't want to be talking to me—which I had just noticed she was doing—but she felt obligated.

Halfway to wherever she was leading me I felt her hand slip from mine and I was surprised and excited and all-around thrilled that she had held my hand, even if by common practice. I may have heard her apologize for something, I wasn't sure. My mouth, I felt it moving, like I was saying something but no words were coming out. She noticed but she didn't say anything back, only pulled me inside.

I only noticed we were inside because the reliable sun was no longer scorching my skin, asking me to come back to the world above, the world of light and peace and easier responsibility.

I felt myself lowering, somewhere, I wasn't sure. I felt my head dropping onto something, something soft and comfortable and so memorable that it killed me that I couldn't recognize. My eyes were getting heavier with time, something was racing through my locks, stroking over my temple gently. A sigh, I knew that she had realized that my mind was away from my body at the moment, I could feel her sadness. My heart was aching for something, I wanted to know.

At that moment, my eyes slipped closed and whatever was left of my consciousness left me lonely and stranded in empty nothingness.

I felt cold. I felt empty, and dead, and lonely, and warm, and broken and utterly useless. There was nothing around me, no light, no dark, no air, no suffocating pressure. There was no sound, no silence, no day nor night, no wind nor rain nor feeling. I wasn't there, wherever there was, and yet I was everywhere. When I was trapped in my shadow-tainted form, I felt cold, I heard silence, I was night and rain was everything. Hurt was me.

Now, something had to have been blocking that empty hatred, that painful sorrow, that lost darkness. Something had to be holding a flame to numb the ice and chase the dark and fight the loneliness by simply being. Something was there now. Something was real.

Time had passed, though I wasn't sure how much, before my eyes flickered open. The sky outside was dark and clouded and rich with the absence of light. A clock on a nightstand—my nightstand?—read five before midnight. I rotated my jaw, felt up at my hair, came across thin calloused skin; fingers, a hand. I tried to catch a visual of my pillow—denim.

I dropped my hand on her knee—Annabeth's knee, it had to be hers. She jolted under me, probably having fallen asleep; I could remember a midday sky just before nothingness came to me, and knew she had been there watching carefully while I slept. I shifted to face her, I shifted to see what she looked like asleep, just to remember, and was met by dim grey eyes partially concealed by soft lashes. A lazy smile spread across her lips.

I could understand something about Sleeping Beauty, though the words had yet to process. She craned her neck, just slightly, still giving a small sleepy smile and I pushed myself up to meet her with my lips. And I could suddenly remember why that longing had been so intense, and why my heart was there in my chest, and why I was hating myself more and more each day. Because I was going to kill this.

"Good morning, Seaweed Brain."

A/N: Not long but it was cute and I think it deserved an award of some kind for being half-way decent.