A/N; Back again in the new year! Hope you like it!

"Truth or dare?"

It's childish but his cabin has never been fuller and it's about time he gets to do some normal teenage thing.

"Dare!" Connor yells, to no one's surprise.

Katie, clearly expecting the answer, smiles. "I dare you to steal a camp shirt from me, right now."

Connor grins. "You know it's still stealing even if you outsource to a third party."

"Scared of the cleaning harpies?" Will teases.

Connor shakes his head, standing up. "Be back in ten."

"Wait! Choose the next person in case you actually do get caught," Piper calls after him. He stops, turning back around while shaking his head.

"No faith in me Piper, but okay. Travis, truth or dare."

Travis sighs and leans forward with his face in his hands. "Truth." It comes out muffled and resigned, a sign of how well he knows his brother because Connor is beaming.

"Who do you have a crush on?"

As if he expected the question, Travis buries his face further into his hands.

"You're welcome, everyone!" Connor says with a grin as he exits the cabin. Immediately all eyes turn to Travis who is still sitting in the same position in silence.

"Just get it over with Travis, it's not as bad as you think," Annabeth speaks up from beside him and Percy turns to his side to look at her.

"You know?"

She just shoots him a playful smile that makes his heart flutter. Another reason why this game is worth it, seeing that smile on Annabeth again as if they hadn't fought two wars.

"Kmmhfmm."

"We can't hear you," Will sings gleefully. He and Annabeth share a look and Percy gets the impression this crush might be common knowledge to everyone but him.

"Katie."

Travis says it quietly, but they all hear him, causing an immediate uproar.

"Finally!" Annabeth and Will shout together, while Katie blushes and Piper cheers.

"Percy, truth or dare!" Travis manages to shout over the chaos, his cheeks are tinged with red and he's avoiding everyone's eyes.

Percy might have survived two wars but he knows better than to take on a Stoll dare.

"Truth."

Travis frowns as if he's being denied the best dare of the century and it solidifies Percy's choice.

"When did you realize you loved Annabeth?"

It's a surprising question to come out of his mouth and suddenly all eyes have pivoted to him instead of Travis. Percy turns to the only ones that matter and she's just looking at him with the same curiosity that she looks at new buildings with.

Her hand, which has been resting softly over his this entire time, squeezes as if to show support. But try as he might he really can't come up with an answer.

"I'm not sure…" he begins thoughtfully. The first he told her loved her was at the spring in Greece but the first time he realized…well that could have been so many times.

He glances back at her, meeting her grey eyes for a moment. "I think…" he continues, "in some way or another, I've always loved her."

He hadn't been acutely aware of the fact then, but looking back, you don't travel across the country on a quest you're not a part of unless you love someone.

"Like," he starts again, mentally trying to map out the timeline. "After the first war ended, it was chaotic and horrible but all I remember mattering to me was that Annabeth was alive in front of me."

"But I don't know if I realized at the time what that was…even when Hera wiped my memories, the only thing I remembered was her face. That's got to mean something, but I didn't think of that, I was just focused on finding her."

He leans back, staring at the spring in the corner of his cabin. "I think there's been a lot of times like that, where I've instinctively done something or felt something without completely realizing why."

Falling into Tartarus hadn't even been a choice in his mind.

"So," he concludes, "I think I've always loved her, and I don't think there's a single moment that I can point out."

He nods, signaling the end of his answer but when he looks back at the group, everyone is staring at him with wide eyes. Confused, he turns to Annabeth who looks like she might cry and oh god that is not what he wanted out of this.

"Anna—" but before he can finish the sentence she tackles him in a hug, burring her face in his chest.

"Gods Percy," she mumbles into his shirt.

His arms wrap around her instinctively as he looks back at everyone else. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

Nico actually groans, which breaks the silent spell on everyone. Piper shakes her head and Will rolls his eyes.

"What?" he asks again, holding on to Annabeth tighter.

"You can't actually sit here and say the most romantic shit ever and not know it," Travis says. "There's no way."

"I wasn't trying to be romantic though," he defends. Wait, should he be defending against this?

Piper just sighs. "We know Percy, that's what makes it more romantic."

He turns back to his girlfriend, still wrapped up in his arms and bends down to kiss her head. "You okay?" he whispers.

She doesn't move and he's perfectly fine with that, so he just adjusts so she's sitting comfortable sitting between his legs.

There's a wetness on his shirt and he realizes that she might actually be crying so he holds her tighter and pulls a Travis by diverting the attention off of them.

"Nico, truth or dare."

Nico shakes his head. "Truth, but don't you dare make it lovey-dovey, no one can top what you just said anyway."

Percy shrugs. "Okay, then tell us the real reason why you got banned from that one McDonalds."

Nico groans, Will laughs and Tavis shouts. "You got banned from McDonalds? Hell yeah!"

"Who got banned from McDonalds? Also, here ya go Katie." Connor slips back into the cabin, throwing a t-shirt at Katie. "Also, what did I miss?"

Piper waves at him to sit down. "Percy confessing his undying love for Annabeth and Nico is about to tell us what he did to McDonalds."

"Perfect, so didn't miss much."

As Nico begrudgingly launches into the story, Percy leans down again to whisper to Annabeth again. "You okay?"

She looks up at him with watery eyes and though he doesn't like to see her cry, it feels like maybe she needed to.

"Yeah," she whispers back. She's got a smile on her face. "I love you too seaweed brain." She wipes at her eyes and tries to straighten up. "Even though you had to go and give the best speech ever about it." She pouts at him as if she's annoyed but he just grins, pulling her back to him.

"I know."

And that's the thing, he does know. He doesn't need her to say it the way he had, he was just answering a truth or dare question after all. Percy knows the same way she knows, through the things they do for each other.

And despite what everyone else might think, their love has always been a little quiet. And he knows by the way she laces her fingers through his as they turn back to Nico's story that she loves him too.

A/N: Shoutout to anon on tumblr for the prompt of truth or dare! I wanted to write this for this series to cover another type of love. I've talked about the concept of quiet romance with Percabeth in the Semantics of love series before too but I wanted to write in a different way.

Hope you guys liked it!

Please review, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

And as always, thanks for reading!