HAHAHAHA. TODAY IS WEDNESDAY. NAILED IT!

Chapter 8

"What I don't understand is why you don't have a dog or like a cat or something." Percy peered at Annabeth from the other end of her soft grey couch.

The first layers of ice had started to spiral patterns in the windows. Florets of pastel white frost were sprawling up the glass and hemmed in rainbow colours as the sunlight pierced heatlessly through them. Outside, blades of glass were sheathed stiff, and a heavy fog that twirled and parted with every car greeted them on this especially sleepy morning. The perfect time of year to stay indoors and hold hot drinks, Percy thought. Or maybe he was just grateful for the invite over.

"Does everyone need a dog or cat?" Annabeth raised a skeptical eyebrow as she turned subtly to shoot him a look. She was bundled up with a loose knit grey cardigan that camouflaged her into the sofa. With her golden blonde hair pulled back up, and her too big sleeves that covered her hands, she looked sweet and innocent and cozy.

Naturally, Percy knew not to be decieved. Her wildfire personality was just under that disarming exterior.

"Of course," he laughed. "Dogs and cats are essential parts of the human existence."

"Then why don't you have one?"

"I have Nico. That's close enough. Besides, I'm far from financially stable enough to own something that requires its own little budget." he excused himself less than gracefully.

"So you consider your roommate a pet, and it's weird that I don't own a dog?" she snorted.

"Well yeah, you like animals right?"

"From afar," she admitted. "But could you imagine all that hair in my house? Ugh, I'd have to clean so much more." Annabeth made a face and gestured around the small living room glowing with the fairy-esque light spilling in through the frosted windows. Dim and peaceful.

He didn't know how he got there. Sitting cross legged across from her, chatting about useless things. Why she invited him over so spontaneously still confused him. She claimed she wanted him to try a new tea. Ginger Peach to be precise. A tart bitter concoction that drifted with a misleading sweet aroma. But it couldn't possibly be just tea.

I'm glad she did invite me anyways…

"It would be totally worth it," he added with a pleading tone. "Dogs are the greatest thing ever. Screw sliced bread."

"A.k.a, you want me to get a dog, so you can own a dog vicariously through me." Annabeth read right through him with a laughing tone.

"Please?" He tried conjuring the seal eyes Annabeth had cracked for last week, but it only seemed to make her laugh more.

"You Seaweed Brain," She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not getting a dog."

He liked mornings like these.

"Damn, I swore that would work."

"If you did, you need to re-evaluate your plan making skills," Annabeth chortled.

Thank god my plans for you fell apart. He thought. Then started.

He wasn't supposed to think like that. Since when did he think like that?

Gratitude, warmth, appreciation for the moment- whatever it should be called; he never felt it. He shouldn't feel it. Because he'd never done anything more but survive and living in the moment required having a life for the moment to happen.

Blinking, Percy stared at her. Slightly agog, at himself at the world but mostly at her. At the fine tune way she seemed to be rewiring his brain. How he could see it. Feel it. Succumb to it.

It made him look at her in a way where he didn't fully know what he was looking at. His failed commission, or his new friend? Could these be the same? Two nights ago he murdered someone for her. That wasn't exactly the typical way friends were made. Did she even see him as a friend?

Percy's eyes drifted to the window. Behind the sheen of frost he could just make out the blue.

Are you sad my boy?

He took a moment to glance in Annabeth's direction. Her own thought heavy eyes were focused upon the freakish sculpture she had chosen to put on her class coffee table. A marble concoction of points and cubes orchestrated into a chaotic visual mess. Maybe she was reconsidering such an ugly piece of work, but Percy doubted it. Her furrowed eyebrows spoke of deeper concerns than flog worthy artists. How her startling grey eyes focused on nothing at all yet held everything in them…

She's… cute.

In ernest, she was a vision in front of him. Framed by the light in such a way that it brought the gold out in her hair, the rosiness in her cheeks, the colour in her lips.

Strikingly beautiful. That was one of his first thoughts about her, wasn't it? He didn't understand how she could surpass that definition. Yet there she was, quickly becoming more and more beautiful the longer he stared. Yet all she was doing was clasping her steaming mug between her slender hands. Thinking. Not saying. Just being.

He tried not to notice her like that. The way she played with her plump lips, the subtle bounce in her breasts, the gentle yet graceful swagger in her hips. If he'd seen her in a bar when he was out hunting for a teaspoon of serotonin, he would have approached her first.

He'd never have asked about her life beyond kind small talk. He would never have guessed her oddities. The way she held people at a distance, the fire in her eyes when she was defensive, the way she glanced at him and told him exactly what was on his mind.

The ocean is only seen by those who don't stare at their own feet.

"Dogs die," she muttered, almost to herself, out of the blue.

"Dogs die…" Percy repeated with a confused, somewhat concerned undertone. His thoughts broke away at her soft voice.

"Well, I've made a horrible habit of being honest with you, so I guess you should know that; dogs die." Annabeth clarified in the least clear way possible. Exasperation clouded her face as she grew frustrated that he wasn't understanding her.

Percy gave her a face. Mentally reprimanding himself because did he just seriously think this mad woman was cute? He forgot who was in front of him, clearly.
"Well, I've… never met an immortal dog… soo…." Percy said carefully.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I don't want to get attached to something that'll just leave me again,"

"But… then you'd never let anything into your life," he pointed out. "Isn't that kind of… lonely?"

She looked slightly conflicted at this. Not at war with herself, but not completely sure of all the little details yet. Her eyes were set decidedly on the twisty sculpture. Nibbling the edge of her lips again as if the thought was only half worrisome.

"I guess it comes down to what I'm willing to risk for love," Annabeth said thoughtfully. "When you have things… people you love, the deeper you love them the more at risk you are to feel heavier pain of that loss. Nobody thinks about the pain aspect of it. Nobody wants to think about how much grief they would feel if they lost a close friend or family member because nobody usually has to. With me… I'm always weighing if a person would be worth the risk of pain. That's why a pet is basically impossible for me. A dog has such a short life… I don't think I'm ready to have something in my life that's so delicate, and with such a short time. I'm sick of having short relationships followed by pain."

The Ocean is deep.

"So Piper is worth the risk of pain," Percy added quietly. "So far, only Piper is worth the risk of pain."

"Well yeah…" she said. "And you. But that's about it."

And you. His heart fizzled at her words. He must've puffed up a little because Annabeth's expression flattened.

"Don't get so cocky you Seaweed Brain. You're only worth 'the pain' because if I lost you it'd be like losing a sock in the washing machine. An annoyance at best, an uncomfortable day of wearing mismatched socks at worst."

Percy scoffed and gestured to himself broadly. "How could you not be devastated without this?"

Annabeth looked him up and down with such an icy expression of pure indifference that he felt his entire soul shift in his body like it was itching to move out.

"So only Piper is worth the pain." he moved on. "Why? Surely there are other people out there who are worth at least a little risk in pain."

She paused then. Covering up her unease by taking a sip from her cup. But again, Percy could see the indecision behind her eyes. Questioning her faith in him, Percy gathered. What he could be trusted to hear.

"There were others," she finally sighed. "Last year, I had… more."

"What happened?"

His return was instant. That curiosity, it burned against his head with desperate need to be satiated. He didn't mean to come off as eager or insistent but there was little room in his tone for much else. It was only after he'd nailed her with that question did he truly see the flickering hollowness in her eyes. How she was trying to hide something that hurt behind her grit teeth and furrowed expression.

He didn't want to cause her pain by making her draw out the answers he was looking for. But he didn't have another moment to rectify his mistake.

"Life happened." She blew air in a frustrated manner. "I let myself be led along by the wrong people. One in particular who I had considered myself close to for… eons. He turned out to be a horrible person, and when I broke things off with him the rest of our mutual 'friends' chose his side. Obviously they couldn't stand the idea of being without him and his 'gifts'."

Percy stared at legs. The bleached spot near his knee where he'd scrubbed a splatter of blood so thoroughly it took the dye with it. A swirling pit was expanding in his chest. He remembered seeing the picture of Mr. BigMoney, hearing a name but… they never stuck. Only the anger fueled tenor of his voice resonated.

"Your ex-fiance, right?"

Her head snapped in his direction, accusations flared up in her burning grey eyes as Percy instinctually set his mug down so he could put his hands up in defense. Whatever bit of trust she'd just built into him had evaporated like smoke and was replaced with a merciless glare.

"How-"

"You told me."

"I did not!"

"While you were drunk. Just before you went to sleep, you mentioned a guy you were going to marry, but didn't," Percy explained calmly. Searching her eyes gently as he tried to express that it was okay. He had no bad intentions.

Well at least… not anymore.

"Oh," she said flatly, with a sudden nervous flutter in her wandering gaze and a sprinkle of colour in her cheeks. Nervously, she readjusted her grip on her plain white mug again. "Er… just out of curiosity… what did I say exactly?"

"Practically nothing. Just that he was horrible and he had nice eyes."

As per usual, he kept his gaze away. Sensing her discomfort. The way she was fidgeting and anxious on this topic, the way she was avoiding eye contact spoke more than she intended.

What does she know?

Just how conscious was she of the man she used to date? Her fragmented sentences from that night long ago were finally piecing together. Something else was definitely off.

"You also mentioned that he threatened you-" she stiffened. "-And that he used to randomly visit you?"

Annabeth exhaled slowly and shot him a delicate smile. "Did I? What an absurd thing to say. That's the last time I'm getting drunk."

She suspects something.

"Annabeth… are you okay?" Percy couldn't help it. She was skittish. She was never skittish, he wasn't used to her looking so rattled.

"I'm fine," she said immediately. A sloppy and obvious cover up as her eyes hardened and her face tightened into a purse. She looked at him with this buried emotion of a trapped fox cornered by hounds. Hiding her fear under an angry glare again.

"Wisegirl-" Percy tried to reach out to her gently. Knowing that she wasn't being honest with him. Her eyes alone were tearing him apart.

"Are you done with your tea?" she said stiffly. "I'm going to refresh mine."

With fluttering hands she daintily took his half full mug from the glass coffee table and padded off down the hallway towards the stale lit kitchen.

"Annabeth-" Percy followed.

"No, Percy," she commanded cooly. "Just leave it. Okay?"

Briskly, she plopped the mugs in the sink and started the water. Acting like he wasn't even there. Miss Impossible Annabeth Chase. Percy had grown accustomed to her impossible ways, but he couldn't stand the thought of letting her thoughts rot inside her brain. She was hiding a piece of her that was shriveling up, and as her new self-stated friend(?), he couldn't just sit and watch her walk away.

A sailor is at the mercy of the waves, he cannot tame waters for they are not his.

Percy swallowed. Staring at her back helplessly as he watched her hands scrub with an unnatural rigidity. The fever in her movements spoke of enough pain and fear to set his heart into a thick knot but all he did was stand there. Words on words on words mounted on his tongue. Useless words. Empty words. None would work.

His skills didn't reach in that direction.

Percy took a deep calming breath.

So what if he sucked at it? Annabeth didn't need perfect, she needed present.

He'd start with what he knew, with how he could relate, with what he saw. He'd build from there.

Tenderly he placed a hand on her shoulder. The soft fabric melded under his fingers as he gently squeezed. A serious tone in one simple move and a lifetime of training to keep his fingers from trembling at the contact.

"You're scared," he said just above a whisper. Annabeth's washing stopped. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing." she tried to shoulder him off. Her contemptuous anger started to rise at being so obtusely confronted.

"Why are you scared?" He stepped closer. Scoping around the few curls framing her face to find her eyes with his intense green ones. Holding her in place with the knowledge that he was right.

"I'm not-"

"Liar." Percy cut off in one razor sharp word. Spoken with that striking hardness, and calm serenity that made him so popular amongst the employers. Not breaking his breaching gaze for a millisecond as she slowly started to crumble under his touch. Her panic welled in a suffocating way when her shoulders slumped defeatedly.

"I don't feel safe." She shook her head sullenly, then pressed her wet soapy palm to her forehead as if to soothe a sudden headache. "They found a body next door the day before yesterday… And… it was gruesome and awful. It was just… jarring and… "

"And?" A rumbling row of curses darted around Percy's mind at himself. Of course leaving the body there would shake Annabeth. What the heck was he thinking? He was so used to lifeless flesh bags that he didn't think beyond himself. What a rude thing to do.

"I don't know." She turned, breaking his touch from her shoulder, and leaned against the sink. The weight of the sky in her eyes as she stared up at him, powerless. "They say he was trying to rob the neighbours house since they're away on vacation and just had an accident but it doesn't feel that way."

"Why not?" He asked a little breathlessly.

What does she know?

"Well, between nearly falling off a bridge to my death, coming within inches of a head on collision with an eighteen wheeler, and the recent break in I had, I've just been more aware of my own mortality lately. I might just be demonizing every threat but… fuck when the police told me about the body I was scared. What if that guy decided to break into my home? What if it wasn't an accident, what if that guy was murdered?"

She crossed her arms. A self comforting move. Still, he could see the slight tremble in her limbs as she talked. "And it just got me thinking about that guy who broke into my house, who was in my room-" Percy held his breath. "-he didn't steal anything. He wasn't rooting around for anything. What if…" She paused. Lower lip quivering. Percy felt like reaching out to her again but his mind was a vortex of sinner sinner SINNER. "What if that guy was in my house to hurt me? What then? He's still out there. He could be planning shit knows what while I'm here drinking tea!"

Stressed, Annabeth rubbed her temples in slow clockwise motions. That slump of defeat persisted in her shoulders as Percy stood there guilt stricken. Staring at his target, his victim, his task and feeling a mounting pressure of disgust slowly fill his gut.

"That's why you invited me over," he pieced together with upturned brows. "You just-"

"-didn't want to be alone." Annabeth finished. "Yeah."

For a fading instant they just stood there. Lost in each other's eyes. For once Annabeth wasn't shying away from his gaze, and Percy was finding it difficult to hide every soured emotion bubbling inside of himself. He never got to see this side of the fear before.

Sure, he felt it a little while being hunted himself but it was different for him. Anytime he was being chased, he could just pick up and move. Fly away to somewhere new, be someone else. For Annabeth… running away meant losing everything. And that's what made her fear so much more palpable.

How many others had been like her? Others who'd heard his gentle stalking footsteps, who saw the barrel of his gun or the glint of a knife in the height of motion. Others who knew the fear and cried and pleaded and fell at his feet, desperate to cling to the little lives that they'd painstakingly built for themselves.

Monster. A voice in him hissed. One he hadn't heard since his early teens. Monster.

"How does your ex-fiance fit into all of this?" Percy asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

Her tired eyes filled with conflicting emotions, her lips were pressed into a hard line. Pretty, even in her twisted expression of indecision and strain.

Dammit, you've got to stop thinking she's beautiful. He self corrected.

"My ex-fiance." she muttered slowly. Almost as if she were turning his name in her mind over and over. An incessant nightmare. "I don't think I'm ready to talk about him just yet."

Percy nodded thoughtfully. Tracklessly contemplating all his interactions with . Remembering each cold rage spoken word with a thorn in his heart. The heaviness in his gut grew as he stood there. Remembering his last client.

How had that man treated Annabeth?

"I won't ask then," he said finally. An inkling of a smile rising on his face. Meeting Annabeth's eyes with an ardent attention. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Even as curious as I am.

Percy turned to give her space. After all that talk, she was bound to be emotionally drained. She looked it, at least. But before he could get two steps away Annabeth's arms wound around his torso and hugged him tight from behind.

It was instant. The response. His body went tight, fight mode. A flush of shock sent waves of cold tingling through his veins. His breath got caught in his throat, forcing him to take panicked little gasps. For a heart pounding moment he stood stiff, afraid to move.

When she readjusted her grip, he felt it. His headspace. Cold and clear and sharply encasing his mind with such an absence of emotion that he felt dry.

It was that spark that brought him back, brought him down from the ledge of alarm. That sudden warmth that emblazoned in his chest two days ago. It let him feel her behind the arms, feel her intent and care and gratitude.

It melted him.

"If you tell Piper I hugged you of my own free will I'll kill you," she mumbled against his shoulder.

Percy chortled, half out of nerves the other half out of the oddity of the weird mushy feeling warming his chest. "I'd gladly let you kill me just for the satisfaction of telling her."

Annabeth's grip tightened, and Percy's heart dropped a heavy beat. "Don't you dare!"

"Haha, you know who'd listen to your every trouble without judging or telling?" he asked.

"Who?" The way her lips brushed his back was deconstructing him bit by bit.

"A dog."

She slapped him upside the head with a snort.

"Seaweed Brain."

.:oOo:.

The phone was ringing. He didn't answer. He continued to munch on his cereal in a thoughtless way. It's buzzing ringtone only slightly irritated him as it penetrated his groggy state. Ethan Nakumura could shove it.

"You going to get that, Jack?" Nico sounded confused. Resting the controller in his lap while cocking an eyebrow up at him.

"Naw." Percy grumbled.

"...huh."

Okay. For real. I'll try and keep a decent update schedule. My life is currently a bit scrambled but I promise I'll try.