Percy

As I was saying, I will tell them soon. But now, let's continue this birthday! What else can we do?" "Well, we can't really invite our friends over. Most of them are either busy with quests, in California, or dead. Also, it's a bit too late for that now." "Yeah, we should have thought about that earlier. Like a month earlier." "Annabeth, one month ago we were battling a primordial on his own heart. We had absolutely no time for planning birthdays." "Oh, please don't remind me of that. I don't remember that stuff myself but there are certainly people in here who would not enjoy being reminded of that. And even if I was so heartless to say 'It's not me who's having the flashback so why would I care' my presence at front is still unstable" "Why don't we look at our anniversary album together? I could use some percabeth fluff." "Percy, this isn't Wattpad. We don't just get to choose fluff. Your statement made no sense and I agree with it 100 percent." "First of all, how do you know Wattpad but get the name YouTube wrong?" "Well, the time Wattpad got so popular that someone could have introduced me to it just happened to coincidence with when I was in the mortal world." "When exactly did that happen?" As always (well, always outside of trauma) Annabeth's memory didn't fail her. "It was on the day that you got attacked by the laistrygonians." The Canadians?" "Yes, the Canadians. I thought you had stopped using that term after meeting Frank. Anyways, I was chilling on the school grounds when I heard some girls talk about a story from Wattpad and I asked them what it was so they explained it to me. But it's not like I use that website, I just know what it does. Anyways, fluff sounds good." I got the book from the counter and went back to Annabeth. We sat down on the couch, my parents around us, and I opened the book. I read aloud what was written on the first page, since only half of us knew ancient Greek.

"I know the cover says 'one year', but Hazel and I have decided to devote the first few pages to the backstory of your relationship. I tried my best to not show it in a negative light, since I didn't really like Percy getting closer with Annabeth. Enjoy it anyways.

R.E.D.

I flipped to the next page and saw a picture of myself lying in bed in the big house, Annabeth standing next to it. I wondered who had taken that photo before noticing the fine line structure of the image, proving that it was a drawing. Below the picture was the sentence that had started the best romance in centuries (Piper said that, not me): "You drool when you sleep". The album continued through our other romantic moments: The thrill ride of love (I quickly skipped that scene due to 'flashback hazard for Annabeth'), the underwater bubble next to the island of the sirens, me meeting Aphrodite and her looking like Annabeth ("Did I really fall in love that early. I thought that was like a year later.") and so much more. After a few pages, we finally reached the pretty much best underwater kiss of all time. After that came a period of cute dates. "What is that supposed to be?" Annabeth asked, pointing at a picture of her face surrounded by hearts and her name. Around that was darkness. "I guess it portrays the entirety of my memories as of, uh, when did I wake up at the wolf house again?" "18th of April" Annabeth promptly responded. "So, entirety of my memories as of the 18th of April."

The next picture showed Annabeth judo flipping me in new Rome. The following weeks had been stuffed with us being an adorable reunited couple, so the book contained lots of pictures from that timeframe, ending at the stable incident. After that, there were some pages that were glued together. On the front of the block was a warning. "I think you're aware what the next pages contain. It's mostly you being a great couple, but it still was at that place. Don't open unless you're absolutely ready!" "I think we'll skip this for now" Annabeth just nodded. I flipped the entire glued section, revealing a picture of us sitting in the grass together. In the background were the rest of the seven, UPS and the statue that they were about to deliver to NYC. The last picture in the book showed us at the dam snack bar. "So, where do these pictures come from?" Paul asked. "So, Hazel used the mist to show me Annabeth. Like, all my memories of her. In that process, she saw the memories herself and she and Rachel could draw them. For the stuff from the glued section, it was more complicated. Hazel had to shield me from what the mist was showing me while she, who only saw it as a side product of her being the one manipulating the mist, had to remain able to see everything. It was like ordering a steak with some side dishes but without steak if you know what I mean." Annabeth laughed at my newest seaweed brain analogy. She added: "So, yeah, Hazel made the mist have us see each other and then drew it. Though the colors are so vibrant, I think she and Rachel might have gotten help from the Iris cabin." "Did you know that Iris doesn't actually do the messenger thing anymore? Her assistant fleecy does it for her. Also when Hera kidnapped me, the Iris cabin hadn't been finished yet so I hadn't knowingly met any of her children until after Gaia's death and I half expected them to give me algae based imitations of cake. But they just offered to make everything blue for one day in my honor. Leo would have hated that, had he not been dead at that point."

I saw the sky light up for a split second. About 6 seconds later I heard thunder rumbling. 2 kilometers. I had been so invested into the anniversary album that I hadn't even noticed it start to rain. I wasn't particularly fond of thunderstorms since they sometimes meant that Zeus was angry at someone (usually me). I inched closer to Annabeth, perhaps over exaggerating my fear a little bit. We cuddled together on the couch and I knew that if there was ever a continuation album, this would be in it.

Outside I heard what sounded like a car driving through water. I looked out the window and saw that the street was flooded. Probably a drain clog. "As the son of Poseidon, all water related problems fall under my responsibility" I declared. "And that includes clogged drains." "Percy, you can't go outside with weather like this" Annabeth said with concern in her voice. My mom nodded in agreement. "Don't worry, storms are Poseidon's realm, so this is as natural for me as being in the ocean. I can't even get wet. Also, there hasn't been a single lightning strike in at least thirty seconds, so by demigod standards, this is very safe" "Fine, if you insist on unclogging that dam drain, I guess I can't stop you" I nodded before making my way outside.

Using my son of Poseidon sonar, I quickly found the nearest drain. Using a small current, I pushed all the debris away from it and watched as the flood water formed a whirlpool and the street drained in just a few minutes. I tried to sense other clogged drains but could not find any. "All drains free. Perseus out." I announced like a badly written superhero before going back to our apartment. Just as I sat down on the couch, lighting struck again (looks like I was wrong about this being over), this time only half a kilometer away (according to Annabeth), which scared me enough to justify some more cuddling. Thanks for that Zeus.

I vaguely remembered something similar happen years ago, a few days after we had retrieved the master bolt from the underworld. Even before Luke had poisoned me. Annabeth and I had been sitting in the strawberry fields when a particularly strong thunderstorm had hit long island. Maybe Zeus had just gotten back from purifying away the human taint and now could not get enough of using it. I didn't know why exactly it had happened, but there had been this abnormally strong thunderstorm right outside the border. Take that, combine it with the (admittedly tiny, at least by Tartarus survivor standards) amount of trauma I had just been through and the now known fact that the one controlling the lightning disliked me and you get a very scared Percy. Like I said, I had been with Annabeth and when the first lightning bolt had struck, I had inadvertently gone a bit closer to Annabeth. We had ended up leaning onto each other and waiting out the storm. For me it had just been a gesture of comfort, but for Annabeth… "Hey Annabeth, remember the thunderstorm after the first quest? When we were in the strawberry fields." A short moment of silence. "Yeah, I got that memory. What about it?" "I was just wondering what that was like to you. 'cause for me it was just comforting, but you were already kind of in love, right?" "Oh, that was great. Imagine, ummm, imagine you've ordered something to eat and the waiter tells you 'we're terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but I dropped a bottle of blue food coloring onto your meal' and also you haven't had blue food in weeks" I could 100 percent relate to that. "That's what it was like. Something I craved coming to me on its own. I have no idea how I didn't pass out from blood deficiency" "Why deficiency?" Because all the blood was in my face because I was blushing really hard. Oh, and there was also blood in the lining of my stomach because for some Zeused up reason, your stomach lining always blushed along with your face. Don't ask me why, I'm not a doctor, just some girl who absorbs knowledge like a sponge. Ask Will instead." "I take it you really enjoyed that particular thunderstorm." Sally said. Had she been there this whole conversation? She likely had been. "I did. But now that me and Percy are together, I can get cuddles whenever I want" "Yes you can" I confirmed, inching a bit closer to her. "But thunderstorms are still the best opportunity." "One more thing: you said that you craved physical contact, that sounds kind of non-asexual to me" Was my mom figuring Annabeth's attraction to me "Well, things like cuddles fall into the category of sensual attraction, which I experience like anyone else, maybe even more than other people, rather than sexual attraction" Saved I guess.

"You could probably do so much research into the positive effects of hugging and cuddling, especially with the people you love. Physical closeness can be really helpful and this is probably the closest Percy and I will get." She raised her hand, showing off the ace ring on her middle finger. That ring was technically kind of lying, or at least implying incorrect things, namely that Annabeth had no such interest in me, but Sally and Paul didn't have to know that. "I think I heard that sleeping with someone you love, like sleeping next to them, not the other one, improves your mental and physical health and even increases life expectancy. Therefore, cuddling might also have positive effects other than the immediate feeling of being more calm. I've observed that it can be stabilizing in terms of dissociation. But maybe I just think it will happen and the rest is placebo. On the other hand, this is all in my head so you could argue that everything I try to help with my DID works because of the placebo effect. I'm assuming neither DID nor cuddling have a lot of research dedicated to them, even less so their combination and Interaction. That was science hour with Annabeth, thanks for listening."

My mom and I looked at each other, then started laughing. "What's so funny?" Annabeth asked. "Oh, nothing. Just the way you were casually talking about something and then ended it like a formal lecture." "Well, that's not nothing. Another one of my most hated word crimes, along with an unspecified 'depends'. But, it was a collection of sort of scientific information, so why not declare it an official science hour with Annabeth? I do that quite often, though I usually just think the announcement rather than saying it out loud." "We've been dating for over a year now, well, one year and a few hours, but I'm still finding out new stuff about you." "To be fair, if we factor in the time you were in California, plus the two weeks in you-know-where that were time dilated into 2 days, you'd only get around five months together. Plus three years (of which we only spent like ten percent together) where we were so close we might as well been dating." That last part was definitely true. "When we were dropped in the lake and became an official couple, Tyson wasn't there so I told him. His reaction was something like 'What, brother was not in relationship with Annabeth before?' So yeah, we've essentially been together for a very long time. But you still surprise me sometimes."

There was another short burst of light. But this time it wasn't lightning, just the light on Paul's phone as he took a picture of us leaning against each other on the couch. The thunderstorm continued and so did our being cute on the couch together. "Percy?" "Yeah?" "I just realized another mistake in ROTS." After being together with her for gods know how much time, I knew that she wasn't actually interested in discussing this topic and it was actually some elaborate trick. "So, in the scene where they are below the elevator…" She spent another good five minutes discussing the logic of star wars or rather its absence. Paul asked "Percy, how do you handle this?" "Handle what?" "Annabeth has been talking about mistakes in a movie for five minutes straight. How are you not going insane?" Sally agreed. "I think these two can handle themselves. Though we might later have to use a crowbar or something similar to get them apart." Paul and Sally left us alone. Annabeth kept on discussing movie mistakes for another few seconds before stopping. "And this is how you get adults to leave."

So, Percy and Annabeth are alone now. What could they possibly want to do that is not possible in the presence of Percy's parents? Find out next chapter which may or may not be posted on time.