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mevenae · 2 years

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bad dreams & bedsheets

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There aren’t any bedsheets in the Big House

Fresh ones that is. There aren’t any fresh smelling or soft feeling bed sheets in the Big House. Annabeth knows this because she tore apart every storage closet and supply room in said Big House. And she’s found exactly two sets of sheets. One of which with a mystery stain she wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole—let alone sleep on—the other with so many holes she’s convinced an Apollo kid was using it for target practice.

“Damn, Chase.” She’d been so preoccupied with Mission Find Fresh Sheets that she hadn’t noticed Clarisse wander past the disaster zone that Annabeth was sitting in the middle of. “What’d the closet do to you?”

“It doesn’t have any new sheets. There are no new sheets in this goddamn camp.”

Clarisse nods thoughtfully, as if the mess at her feet and the tears in her eyes are a rational response to not finding new sheets. “Have you checked—,”

“I promise you, wherever you’re about to say, I have in fact, checked.”

“Mm.” One of the best things about Clarisse is the fact that she never questions her. She takes whatever Annabeth says and works from there. “Why do you need new sheets in the first place?”

And therein lies the problem.

Why does Annabeth need new sheets? Because she does. She really needs new bedsheets. She really, desperately needs new bedsheets. Depending on the target, she can honestly say she’d kill a man for new bedsheets.

“Is this a Percy thing?” Annabeth shakes out of her train of thought to scowl.

“What, now that we’re dating, anything I do must have something to do with Percy?”

“Okay, so it’s a Percy thing.” One of the worst things about Clarisse is her uncanny ability to see right through Annabeth's bullshit.

“Okay, yes, fine, it’s a Percy thing.” Clarisse raises a single eyebrow. “Oh my gods, no, it’s not that. Jesus, we’ve been dating for nine days, we’re not animals.” Clarisse shrugs then smirks in a way that Annabeth is definitely going to have to ask her about later.

“Okay, then what is it? Like you said—it’s been nine days, you can’t be having problems already.” Annabeth picks at her nail beds. She feels a wave of grief as she’s reminded that the person she would go to—for nail beds and the Thing—isn’t here anymore. Clarisse misinterprets her silence. “Shit, are you having problems already? Is he being an asshole? Because I can—,”

“No, no, we’re actually great. He’s great. I don’t think anyone’s the asshole which should make me feel a lot better than I do. It’s just…complicated.”

“Percy’s a complicated person.” Clarisse says, almost unthinking. “You are too.”

Like Annabeth doesn’t know that. Like their joint complicatedness isn’t one of the main reasons she spent the entirety of last year with a knot in her stomach.

“I’m guessing the reason you’re not telling me what the thing is, is because it’s all personal and you wanna respect the privacy of your shiny new relationship.” Annabeth smiles a little subconsciously, the way she has been the past nine days when someone teased her about her and Percy's couple status. Clarisse notices—the observant little shit—and mimes gagging before she continues. “Well, whatever it is, I can tell you right now the answer isn’t bedsheets. It’s to talk to your stupid boyfriend about whatever stupid thing is bothering you.”

Annabeth looks down at her fingers and thinks that if she phrased it a bit differently, Clarisse would sound an awful lot like Silena right now. She wants to tell her that, but it might just make her sad, so she holds back and instead says what she’s been pretending wasn’t the case since she set off on her warpath to find sheets. “I’m scared of what’ll happen if I bring it up.”

“Why?”

Annabeth shrugs.

“You know he fucking loves you, right?” Another lumps pushes at her throat as she attempts to shrug.

“He hasn’t said it.”

Clarisse rolls her eyes. “Just because he’s afraid of the word doesn’t mean he feels it any less.” The statement of fact shouldn’t scare her as much as it does. Because yeah, objectively, she knows. She knows it the same way she knows that the war is really over or that Luke is dead or that she loves him back. Of course she knows Percy loves her. She’s aware it’s a fact, but it's gonna take her a while to get used to. It’ll take her a while to really believe it, at least on his part.

But she does. The more she thinks about it he’s told her a thousand different times in a thousand different ways. It caused him to forget consequences if it meant making sure she was safe, whether he realized it or not. It made him a special kind of pissed at her when she did something dangerous, and it made him kiss her like it was the first time every time. Or like it would be the last time every time. She isn’t sure. She hopes it's the first option.

(It’s probably the second.)

But she doesn’t say any of that. Clarisse might actually throw up if she did. Instead she says, “Wow. I never thought I’d see the day Clarisse LaRue would give me love advice.”

Just as she predicted, Clarisse narrows her eyes and turns to walk down the hall to wherever she was going before. “Yeah, well, this will be the first and last time.” For some reason it sounded like even Clarisse knew it was a lie, but Annabeth didn’t call her out on it. She sighs and goes to pick up the mess at her feet.

She hears the squeak of Clarisse’s sneakers and squints down at where Clarisse had come to a stop and half turned back to Annabeth. “Seriously, you’re good? You know what to do?”

Annabeth nods at her sullenly because yeah, she knows what she has to do.

She just really wishes she had found the bedsheets.

The night Percy and Annabeth got together was perfect.

From the way he tasted like her birthday cake, to the way he touched her ankle to dry her socks off in her shoes, to the way he whispered in her ear to use her hat to meet him back in his cabin after her siblings fell asleep. And how, when she climbed invisibly through his open window, he was bouncing on his heels at the other end of the room, like he was too excited to sit down. Or how they had to keep shushing each other’s giggles as they lie face to face in his too small bunk bed. Or how he kissed her through delirious smiles because he couldn’t seem to help either the smile or the urge to kiss her every thirty seconds. Or the fact that they never actually got around to sleeping.

They never got around to sleeping, but she couldn’t seem to mind the swollen lips or the bags under her eyes when Percy spent the whole morning looking at her like he’d never seen anything so wonderful in his entire life.

She’s snuck into his room every night since—partly because they’re sixteen and stupid and sneaking around is fun and partly because she spent five years thinking he was going to die and then he didn’t and she can’t quite believe that either—and it’s always the same. He’ll light up when he sees her like they hadn’t seen each other an hour ago, and they’ll make out on his tiny bunk bed, and laugh into each other’s necks until Annabeth falls asleep on his chest.

And then she’ll wake up alone. In sea salt smelling sheets with no sea salt smelling boy.

The first night she heard a strange noise at four-thirty in the morning, and blinked awake to the sight of Percy’s back. He was sitting up at the other end of the bed, telling her that she had to go back to her cabin. He’d kissed her quickly and then locked himself in the bathroom and she was too disoriented to realize at the time, but looking back he hadn’t looked her in the eye once. He was tense at breakfast, she could see from her table, but she didn’t think much of it because he relaxed when he saw her again after the fact.

The next day, and every day after that, she woken to him crouched next to her head, to tell her he’s going to the beach, and not to let the harpies find her in his room. It was on the third morning that she noticed his side wasn’t nearly as rumpled as her side. It was on the fifth that she noticed the empty bunk across the room was significantly more rumpled than hers. On the eighth she noticed how tired he seemed when he thought she wasn’t looking.

(On the ninth morning, she decided he needed new bedsheets.)

After her conversation with Clarisse, she spent the rest of the day agonizing about the conversation she had with Clarisse and using her work to distract herself from the fact that she was agonizing about her conversation with Clarisse. In fact she brought her laptop with her to Percy’s room when she knew he’d be showering, just so she had something to do with her hands.

Percy waltzes out of his bathroom with basketball shorts hanging low on his hips and wet hair dripping onto a remarkably bare chest and Annabeth hates him a little. Hates the way he’s a bit too beautiful , and it distracts her from important things like the fact that she has to have an important conversation with him. Hates the way he looks at her like he’s never seen anything like her, like he can't believe he gets to continue to look at her, like he’d be perfectly content to do nothing but look at her for the rest of his life.

“Hey.” His voice still takes her by surprise. The deepness of it. The sureness of it. She loved him when his voice cracked and wobbled—but she doesn’t hate this. “How’s Olympus?”

“Beating my ass. Mercilessly. With a stick.” His laugh is muffled by the tank top he’s pulling over his head—which doesn’t do much for her concentration because really all it does is define his arms more—and he crosses the room to stand beside her. He squirts at the program she has running to structure columns and says, “Okay, I would love to help you but everything on that screen means nothing to me.”

She tries to laugh but she’s so anxious it comes out more as a puff of air. He seems to notice, because he furrows his brow, removes one of the pillows behind her and slides in its place, and before she knows it, she’s being pulled back flush against his chest, and he’s drawing nonsensical patterns on her arms and he’s asking if her work is the only thing bothering her.

‘Okay Annabeth,’ she thinks, ‘this is the part where you tell him you know something’s wrong, that it’s alright if he doesn’t want to sleep in the same bed as you, that you can stay in your cabin and you aren’t mad, you just want to know he’s sleeping because it seems like he hasn’t slept in nine days and all signs point to her as the reason that he isn’t sleeping and—,’

“You need new bedsheets,” is all that comes out.

“That’s what's bothering you? My bedsheets?”

“Yes. You need new ones and I looked for some all morning and I couldn’t find any, so you have to ask Chiron for new bedsheets.”

She feels more than hears his shudder of laughter and he burrows his face in her neck. “Okay… what's wrong with my bedsheets?”

And now she’s angry that he seems to think her ridiculous request is funny but she’s only making this ridiculous request because he’s not talking to her and he’s not sleeping. “I don’t know Percy, you tell me what's wrong with the bedsheets.”

“I wasn’t aware there was anything wrong with my bedsheets.”

“You weren’t aware?”

“No.” He says the word slowly, seemingly detecting the lack of humor in her voice.

“But there has to be something wrong with your bedsheets,” she insists.

“Why?” It’s the hint of mirth still in his tone that sets her off.

“Because you aren’t fucking sleeping in them!”

His hands go completely still. He goes completely still, and stays that way even as she takes a deep breath and turns to face him.

“I know you’ve been sleeping in the other bunk.” Percy is looking at her like a deer caught in headlights. “Your side is way too neat next to me and that bunk is always all messed up. Like you were moving around a lot. And every morning you wake me up, and you can’t look me in the eye. I’m not upset if you need space—that's fine, I get it. I just don’t understand why you didn’t say so.”

Percy doesn’t say anything, he just puts his head in his hands. She scoots over and reaches out to touch him, but he flinches away, stands up and begins to pace. He’s shaking his head violently, and he’s fighting back tears; she can tell.

“You can’t—” he starts, and then shakes his head again.

“What can I do? How can I help?” She’s trying not to cry but the look of anguish on his face is making it really heard.

“It’s not—,” He cuts himself off. “It’s just—

“What? What is it?” she pleads, “Tell me what’s happening, Percy, it’s all gonna be okay, just talk to me—,”

“I can’t!” he bursts, his breathing heavy and erratic. “ I can’t talk to you and I can’t look at you and I can’t sleep because it’s all my fault! Every time I close my eyes I see it over and over again and I can’t—,”

He’s having a panic attack. It registers in Annabeth's head a little too late, but once it does she goes into autopilot. She’s telling him to breathe, and helping him feel his heartbeat, and maneuvering them into sitting on the bed as she lets him sob into her collarbone. She’s running a hand up and down his back and he’s still shaking but his breathing is a lot more steady when he says, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m right here and—,”

“No,” He shakes his head as best he can, while staying curled up into her. “I’m sorry I stressed you out. That was the opposite of what I was trying to do.”

“What were you trying to do?” She cups his cheeks and lifts his head to wipe his tears. He looks exhausted and sad and wearier than what should be possible for a sixteen year old. “I know you feel like you can’t, but please. Tell me what’s going on.”

He sniffs. Untangles his arms from her waist. Closes his eyes.

“When you took that knife I thought you were going to die.”

Oh.

“The sound you made, you’ve never screamed like that before—not ever. The way you fell, you just crumpled to the ground. And the blood…gods there was so much blood, too much blood. Will’s face, it was like he was looking at a ghost, like you were already—,” He takes another tremulous breath. “You took that knife for me and I thought you were going to die because of it. When I sleep, I watch you die over and over again. I banged into the wall thrashing around in my sleep that first night and woke you up. I didn’t want to worry you or keep waking you up in the middle of the night. That’s why I started switching bunks when you fall asleep. It’s not that I needed space…I actually needed the opposite. I can't go to sleep unless I can see that you're alive and breathing and in one piece with my own eyes.”

Annabeth is in shock. Even if she knew what to say, she couldn’t speak; her voice simply doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter though, because words keep spilling out of Percy.

“It’s not always the same. Sometimes me and Will are too late and it happens at the hotel. Sometimes Ethan hits you in the chest and you die in my arms on the bridge. Sometimes you’re in so much pain you ask me to do it. I can never bring myself to, and I just have to listen to you beg me to kill you. Sometimes…” He trails off and shakes his head like what he’s imagining is too horrible to be put to words. “It doesn’t matter how, all that matters is that it happens and I can’t look you in the eye when I wake up because it’s my fault. It was my knife and you took it and I feel so guilty I can barely breathe, and I’m sorry, I’m so, so fucking sorry Annabeth—,”

Annabeth finds her voice. “Percy.” He freezes again. She wishes he would stop doing that. “Look at me.”

He doesn’t move.

“Percy, I need you to look at me.” He heaves a breath, and finally turns his head. The look in his eyes is similar to the one he had on Olympus. Like he was drinking in the fact that she was alive. Like her being alive was the only thing that mattered to him. “It was my choice to take that hit.”

“But—,”

“No. I chose to take that knife. I don’t know how, but I knew it was going to save you. And I was willing to take that knife if it meant you would survive. Even if it meant—,”

“Don’t.” He warns, something primal in his voice she doesn’t recognize. She changes tactics.

“I didn’t die on the bridge, Percy. I survived because you got me out. You called Blackjack and brought Will and you did everything right and I survived. I can’t stop the nightmares. But I can tell you I don’t mind if they wake me up because I want to be there for you. I can tell you that you shouldn’t look at me and feel guilty, you should look at me and feel proud. Look at me and know that I’m still here because of you. Know that you saved me. In every way possible.”

He’s looking at her in awe and disbelief, like he can’t believe someone would do for him all the things he’s willing to do for others. And then he kisses her. He kisses her and she can feel the I love you on his lips. She wraps arms around his neck and kisses him til she’s sure he knows she loves him back.

Somehow they fall asleep wrapped up in each other, and Percy still has a nightmare, but this time he lets Annabeth card her fingers in his hair and touch her lips to his forehead and this time when she tells him that she’s here and everything is going to be alright, he believes her.

This time, Percy falls back asleep in her arms, tangled in his old bedsheets.

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