MIRELA ➪ PERCABETH

i want you (bless my soul)

"I just don't want to...impose." Impose is such a proper word. A polite word. A grown up word. She tries it out, feeling like a child.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," he says quickly. "but I like it when you come over. And my mom doesn't care."

Not all homes are like yours, Annabeth. Not all children are considered underfoot, Annabeth. You're practically adults, Annabeth. "What would we even do?"

"Homework. Watch TV. Literally anything."

"Ok" she says, smiling into her gloved hand. There it is again, the sunshine feeling that is somehow always not far behind a conversation with Percy. 'Anything' he just wants her there. She wants to be there and he wants her there. What a remarkable coincidence. "Ok"

In all reality it's way too early in the season for it to already be this cold, but New York weather rarely complies with logic. Annabeth wraps herself in a coat and a scarf and takes the train to Percy's place. It's more familiar now, the sort-of-broken buzzer at the door and the long trek up five flights of stairs. New York is still just a place that Annabeth lives, not a place she feels like she belongs. People ask where she's from and she's never sure how to answer: family from Boston, raised in Virginia, grew up on Long Island, spent some time in San Francisco, moved to New York City.

Annabeth can learn how to ride the subway and walk the organized street grid of downtown, but she doesn't make sense here the way that Percy does. The way he makes sense in this apartment and in the parks and sidewalks of New York.

The way he never really talks about moving away when he's older.

Annabeth can't imagine loving some place so much she'd want to stay there the rest of her life. But she wants to. Well, she wonders what it would feel like to want to. And that's almost wanting.

She's sixteen years old and not a terrible lot makes sense.

What does make sense is how she feels when Percy folds her into a hug in the doorway of his apartment, warm after the cold walk over. It makes sense, so she clings to it, and tries not to think about the rest.

Paul isn't home yet and Percy and Sally are in the middle of making dinner. When she had first met him, Annabeth would never have guessed Percy was a competent cook, but he takes after his mom. The apartment smells like garlic and simmering meat, making her even hungrier than she already was. Three's a crowd in Percy's kitchen, so she takes a seat at the table while he and his mom continue in a complicated dance of 'behind you' and 'check the sauce' and 'can you grab that knife, no the other one'. Annabeth knows how to operate the microwave and sink in her dorm's community kitchenette; it's about the extent of her culinary skills. Food has never really struck Annabeth as more than necessary fuel, but in the Jackson house mealtimes are both an event and a labor of love.

It's something she loves to be caught up in, even as a court side observer. It's another thing about Percy that's just enchanting. It makes her want to stay, endears her to the process.

The days end obscenely early—sunset casts the apartment into grays just after six and the lights come on, shifting evening to a cozy night. After dinner Sally sits in the living room, typing away at her computer—a manuscript for her first novel. They end up going to Percy's room—ostensibly to do homework. Annabeth, full of good intentions and delusions of honor roll grandeur, slouches cross legged on Percy's bed staring at curse disguised as a Physics word problem. Percy sits at his cluttered desk tapping out an English essay on a school issued tablet. At some point looking around and trying to conceive of the energy operating in this problem turned into watching Percy at work, studying the hunch of his shoulders and the halting way he approaches the keyboard, the neat knot of his camp necklace peeking out above his t-shirt collar and his mess of dark hair and—

"Annabeth?"

"Huh?"

"Are you literally just staring at me?"

"Maybe. Probably not."

"Why?" he gestures grandly to himself. "See something you like?"

She throws a pillow at him. "Please."

He gets up to return it and stands over her smirking.

"What?" she demands, trying not to smile and failing.

He leans an inch from her face and says in a ridiculous voice "Wait, Annabeth, do you like like me?"

"Maybe."

"Oh my god," he whispers. "that is so embarrassing."

"You fucking dork," she says, and pushes herself up on her knees until she has him in a kiss.

He just laughs, flops down on the bed next to her. "You love it."

And she does, which is why she drags her feet like none other at nine o'clock when she's flirting with her dorm's curfew and she has to wrap back up in her coat and scarf and shoulder her backpack and follow Percy to the door of the apartment.

Annabeth says goodbye to Sally and thanks her for dinner. Sally says it was a pleasure and tells her to take care.

She stalls in the doorway, her hand idly on the knob, to kiss Percy quickly on the cheek.

But he pulls her in and kisses her again and—oh. She doesn't ever want it to stop. And suddenly the enormity of the moment threatens to burst inside her, it doesn't stop swelling even after he pulls away and sweetly says "good night".

His hands are still at a comfortable place on her hips. She can feel the pressure of his fingers through three layers of clothing, it's no different than a dozen times when he kissed her before.

She says "good night", too.

His hands disappear from her hips when she opens the door. She feels the phantoms of them the whole way home. The city seems bright and lit up at angles she's never seen before. Her mind is buzzing with something—with substantial four letter words like home, like love. She wonders if this is what being in love feels like. If so, she thinks, this isn't near as terrifying as people paint it out to be. It's just loud and good and racing through her and she feels like smiling and she never wants it to stop.

___♪___