Age Does Matter - A Jercy Fanfic

Chapter 4

Annabeth-
Ever since he woke up Percy had been acting strange... She didn't have a clue what was wrong, but she worried that it might be something serious. It was 11:00AM and the sunlight was... Dribbling through the crack in the curtains like it always did at this time of year. They were still in bed, which certainly didn't present high hopes for a productive day, and Annabeth worried about that, too. Since taking on the job of redesigning Mount Olympus after the titan war, she didn't realise it would entail year after year of complaints about a certain bench here, or a chipped pillar there. Honestly, she thought to herself, Aphrodite really needed to stop getting lipstick* on her white temple columns.

*Not only this, but the lipstick in question was made by Hepheastus, making it notoriously hard to clean off of any surface they had tried it on.

Today was the day before the day before she presented a new blueprint for Poseidon's seat in the throne room, and she wanted to get it rehearsed as well as possible before the big day. But of course, it didn't look like that was going to happen until tomorrow, what with the mood Percy was in. Was he ill? Whatever it was, something was definitely not right, he was normally out at the pool by now.

-----

Half an hour later, Annabeth was (ironically) tired of being in bed. She started getting up, doing all the things a person normally would after waking at a sensible time in the morning, even though the circumstances probably deemed it a little strange. After all, brushing your teeth just before lunch wasnt exactly practical, but she did it anyway.

-----

Lunch time came around, and with no movement from Percy, Annabeth started to get desperate. She had thought that her leaving the bed would be an incentive for him to do the same, but it had inexplicably backfired and ended up in him having the entirety of the bed to himself. She didn't know what to do.
How could she get Percy moving?
And maybe even functioning like a normal person, Gods forbid?
Hang on...

-----

Percy-

Percy hadn't slept. And now he regretted it immensely. His eyes were heavy and his bones felt like lead pipes in his skin. Oh, Gods, his head hurt so much. 'This is nothing compared to the pain you're going to feel later...' whispered his inner voice. 'Fuck off' he replied.

-----

Annabeth was gone. That was sad. She was warm. He wasn't. He suspected he was coming down with something, but it wasn't at all surprising, after being awake for 24 hours straight. His stomach rumbled violently.

"Perce," came a soft voice from the doorway.
"Percy," and again.
"Perseus!" the voice was sharper now, even through the pillow his face was nestled into.
He looked around, the harsh light from the window giving him an instant headrush. "Whurrr?" he asked, slightly nauseated.
"I said," said Annabeth, sounding much more caring this time, "do you want to go get coffee?"
His head was clearing and the word coffee brought him to his senses. She was sat on the bed now, her hand on his shoulder. "Yeah!" he replied, trying to sound enthusiastic for both their sakes. "From the place under the Empire State building?"
"Of course, where else do we ever go?" She teased.
"Mkay. M getting up." he slurred and began to extract himself from the duvet.

Annabeth-

Success! Percy was getting ready to leave at this very moment. Annabeth was amazed she hadn't thought of mentioning coffee sooner. There was nothing Percy liked more than coffee. Apart from the sea, perhaps, but it was definitely a close second. She blamed it on all the sleep she'd had. Suddenly, she realised that her jacket was inside out. She didn't really like it that much anyway, it was an impulse buy from Urban Outfitters that she had soon thought better of and realised with dread that she didn't get a receipt.

-----

The zipper was stuck. And Annabeth was embarrassed. A long series of events had led to this situation, beginning with lots of Trevor Moran's music and ending with a very ambitious and mobilising dance move that had inadvertently caught the zipper and her headphone wire in it's execution.

Halfway up the stairs, Percy strolled past on the landing, his hair glistening wet and dressed only in a towel around his waist. It was sea green. Like his eyes. Which were looking at her. As she stared at his abs... Oops.
"Oh! Hey honey!" she exclaimed, flustering her words as she tore her gaze away from his perfectly chiseled body. He grinned at her in obvious amusement.
"Having trouble are we?" he asked with a hint of smugness in his tone.
"Oh, Babe! Fuck off!" she laughed back.
"Okay, if you really want me to!" he said, beginning to pace back down the hall to their room again.
"No! Wait! Oh, PERCY COME HERE! GET THIS DAMN JACKET OFF ME!"
"Say the magic word!"
"No. Shan't. She replied with a steely glare, determined not to give in.
"Then do it yourself!" Percy chuckled as he turned and opened the door to the bedroom.
"Okay, okay. I'll say the magic words." Annabeth said, "No coffee until you help me get this thing off"
Suddenly Percy was facing her again, his talented hands working desperately at the tangle where her zipper was. She laughed. "I knew that would get you"
"I want coffee!" Percy exclaimed, pulling at the wire fruitlessly. "Fuck this," he said and yanked the jacket over her head, loosening the towel around his waist in the process. Annabeth didn't notice this at first, because of the cloud of hair in her face, but suddenly saw Percy standing there in all his 5ft 11" glory, for her to see. He hurried to grab the towel from the floor, but she cut him off with a kiss. "It's not like I haven't seen it all before," she taunted before making her way to choose another jacket. Preferably one with a good, solid zipper resistant to violent 'dancing', if you could call it that.

Percy-

Now he was up and distracted from his own thoughts, the day was going swimmingly. Admittedly it had only been an hour, but it still counted. After Annabeth went back to the kitchen, he was alone with his own mind again. She looked so happy to be around him, he thought, but he couldn't deny what he had seen with his own eyes last night. Something wasnt right here. Sure, he loved being around her too, but was Annabeth really the one for him? He was scared to ask her opinion for fear that she would see the same as he did. He was scared that he was right.

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"What's taking so long?" called Annabeth from downstairs. "If they don't have any of my favourite cookies left there will be hell to pay, Jackson!" He couldn't tell if she was joking or not. Annabeth was very protective of her food. Once, they had been way out at sea on a leisurely weekend away when a Siren showed up. She hadn't noticed the singing at all because of a frosted doughnut she'd brought with them in secret. He stood and sighed, fully clothed now of course and started making his way downstairs. "Shall we?" he asked, taking her hand in his.
"We shall"

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Chapter 4 is compete! It's the longest so far, don't worry they are getting progressively longer. What did you think? Leave a comment below with any suggestions or improvements! Sorry about the delay, but I hope you can all understand because of my escapade with losing this entire chapter and having to write it again. I still need a cover for this (For the WattPad version, they don't do covers on Archive Of Our Own as far as I know) so if you could make one for me then please leave a comment and I will get back to you. Thanks so much for reading, see you next week!