#but like pre percabeth where they have crushes on each other but are in denial

[ticklish-scribbler]

Title: How to Relax After A Life-Threatening Quest Summary: The trio struggles with adapting to normal camp life after the events of The Lightning Thief. Annabeth makes a plan, Grover can smell emotions, and Percy gets tickled within an inch of his life. Word Count: 1851 My gift for @vallee-ace for the @squealing-santa event! I hope you enjoy it :)

The days between the quest’s official end and the end of summer should have fallen away quickly. Going from sleeping minutes at a time in cramped, harsh conditions to a lush, comforting bed with open windows and absolute silence should have been a welcome reprieve. His mother’s letter, scrawled in her familiar script, should have been enough to quiet the nightmares of her petrified face, fading to golden dust.

Only—

“We’re soldiers,” Annabeth said, barely an inch over five foot, when Percy complained about how cold his room feels with no one else around. “We get past it.”

“Uh huh,” Percy said slowly, looking her up and down. “You were so tired you sacrificed the plate instead of the food at lunch today.”

Annabeth’s glare was interrupted by Grover’s panpipes, screeching off key. Percy flinched and looked over—Grover’s was attempting to charm some strawberries into growing, but instead they were cringing into the ground and appeared to be shrinking. Katie Gardener frantically gestured for him to stop. Grover, taking her waving arms as encouragement, blew harder and the already pitchy notes jumped up an octave.

A handful of nearby campers shouted complaints.

“Come on,” Annabeth muttered, already making the trek over to Grover. Percy, who had been hoping to move further away from the piercing sound, followed at a much slower pace.

“Ok,” Annabeth said once the panpipes had been safely confiscated. She looked as serious as she did about anything—which, for her, meant like she was ready to go to war. “Time to take a nap.”

. . .

It was unsurprisingly easy to fall back to quest patterns. Percy’s cabin was a guaranteed place of semi-privacy—they stripped the blankets from the bed and laid them in the corner of the room, with a clear view of the exit and backs comfortably against the wall behind them. There was a brief discussion of setting up a watch, but Annabeth cut down that thought quickly—there wasn’t any actual danger, and the whole point was to catch up on sleep.

Grover collapsed to the side of the makeshift bed with a grunt. Percy half expected to hear snores within seconds, but Grover valiantly opened his eyes and bleated. Percy may not have spoke Satyr, but “hurry up!” was clear enough.

“After you, seaweed brain,” Annabeth said, eyes darting around the room, taking in Percy’s discarded minotaur horn on the ground. Percy knew that she was looking for any missed threats. Once she nodded to herself, satisfied, he joined Grover on the ground.

Grover, who sought heat like a lizard in the desert, immediately latched onto his arm. Annabeth crawled down on Percy’s other side, her sheathed knife carefully going within grabbing distance. Her body laid stiffly, but she always was until sleep forced her shoulders to untense.

It was cramped, and already felt a bit sticky in the summer heat, but infinitely better than the cloying softness of the actual bed.

In the back of Percy’s mind, he knew that if any monsters were to attack while he slept, the two next to him would be there when he woke up. He closed his eyes.

Seconds later, he opened them again.

“Why are you sad?” Grover mumbled, sniffing at Percy’s arm. Percy wondered if he was dreaming of crying empanadas.

“Percy’s sad?” Annabeth repeated, voice groggy from almost-sleep.

“He is not!” Percy insisted, mortified. “Grover is just sleep talking.”

“Why are you sad?” Annabeth asked, ignoring him.

“Satrys can smell emotions,” Grover bleated, blinking awake in offense. He inhaled deeply, more intent. “You are sad!” he exclaimed. “Sadness smells like flat soda.”

“Look,” Percy blushed, “It’s nothing, alright?”

“If it’s nothing, then just tell us so we can deal with it and go to sleep.”

That was Annabeth—always logical, even at her most comforting.

“I hate flat soda,” Grover agreed.

Unable to find a way out of it, and too tired to think of something sufficiently witty to make them lose interest, Percy was left with the uncomfortable feeling of telling the truth.

“It’s just—I never really made friends at any of my schools. And now I have you two, but summer’s ending soon. And I’ll just be back at a new school. Again.”

For a second no one said anything, and Percy’s mortification forced its way through his sleep addled brain.

“But anyway, I’m really tired, so let’s head to bed and—”

“Iris messages exist for a reason,” Annabeth cut in. “I was planning on calling you two on a weekly basis to begin with, but you can call too.”

Percy stared.

“You were planning on calling me?” he repeated dumbly. Annabeth narrowed her eyes.

“Were you not planning on calling me?” she asked.

“Er,” Percy said. “I don’t have golden drachmas?” It was easier than admitting he hadn’t realized he was allowed to call.

“I’ll give you some,” Grover said happily. “Satrys don’t really use them among ourselves, so I’ve got a stash. You better call me too though!”

“We’ll do three way calls,” Annabeth said firmly, like there was nothing to discuss. And maybe there wasn’t.

Warm and settled in a way that had nothing to do with the summer heat, Percy laid down. Grover once again grabbed at his arm, and to Percy’s shock, Annabeth grabbed his other. He felt his face heat up as Annabeth laid her head against him.

Percy couldn’t see Grover’s face, but he felt the satry’s smirk against his skin.

Shut up, he thought fiercely, hoping Grover could somehow smell the thought.

Then Percy felt Grover carefully shift so his hand was delicately placed around Percy’s ribs. Percy froze.

“You know, Percy still smells a little sad,” Grover said to Annabeth, who frowned and glanced up. Percy pressed his lips together, already feeling them twitch. Grover’s fingers, concealed by the blanket, started gently scratching at Percy’s side.

“No, I doN’T!” Percy tried to deny, voice squeaking when Grover gave up on gentle and squeezed. Annabeth’s eyes lit up in understanding. Grover and Annabeth shared a mischievous look that made Percy gulp. “I mean come on, we’re all tired here, aren’t we?”

“I feel wide awake,” Annabeth corrected. “Don’t you Grover?”

“Wide awake,” Grover echoed. “Never less sleepy in my life.”

“And we’d be bad friends if we let Percy go to bed sad,” she continued, poking Percy’s side and making him flinch into Grover.

“Absolutely,” Grover agreed, wiggling his fingers in a way that made Percy jolt right back over to Annabeth.

“Come on,” Percy complained, though the effect was lessened by the boyish giggles that were coming out of his mouth. He felt jittery in an exhilarated sort of way, like he was about to practice sword fighting against a particularly good opponent. “This isn’t fair!”

“You fought the god of war and won,” Annabeth reminded him, grabbing one of his flailing arms and pulling it up over his head. Her nails were short and blunt, but Percy felt them scratch over the cotton of his Camp Half Blood t-shirt and immediately fell into full body laughter. On his other side, Grover began poking up and down his ribs and sides, leaving Percy defenseless to the squeaks and squeals coming from his mouth. “We’re just trying to cheer you up.”

“We can’t let you walk around smelling like sadness,” Grover agreed, smiling himself.

Percy’s witty response—he wasn’t sure exactly what it was yet, but he was sure he’d figure it out by the time his mouth was open—was cut off by his laughter jumping ten decibels. Annabeth’s hand paused on his knees, her own lips twitching.

“Careful or else someone might think you’re ticklish,” she said sarcastically. A jolt went down Percy’s spine.

“I’m not!” Percy insisted, voice clear from laughter during the slight break from tickling, but cracking all the same. Annabeth gave him a look as if he had said something particularly stupid. Grover bleated.

“Really?” Annabeth asked. Percy felt her hand shift on his knee, and his heart skipped a beat when he felt Grover reach over towards his other. “You’re not ticklish. Not at all?”

Percy thought briefly of begging for mercy.

“Nope,” he said instead.

As if they had practiced, Annabeth let go of his arm and dug into his left knee with both hands at the exact moment Grover started scribbling his nails above and below his right knee. Percy’s laughter boomed out of him. His legs kicked out reflexively. His arms shot down and tried to grab at Annabeth and Grover, but they had four hands to hold down his two, and no amount of squirming deterred them.

“Let’s think of this logically,” Annabeth said in the matter-of-fact voice that Percy had originally found irritating and now found endearing. “If I do this,” she squeezed his knee in a series of quick pulses that had Percy screeching, “and you laugh, what do you think that means Percy?”

“It means you’re mean!” Percy somehow forced through his laughter, though it took significantly longer than normal.

“Uh huh,” Annabeth said. “And if Grover—” Grover, abruptly, let go of Percy’s legs and instead reached under Percy’s shirt and scribbled at his stomach, “does that, and you laugh then too, what does that mean?”

It took several seconds for Percy to gather enough breath through his glee to respond.

“It means he’s mean!”

“And what else?” Annabeth said, but Percy let the laughter flow over him and didn’t respond. He felt light and floaty—his mind was further away than it normally was, his entire brain taken up with the feeling of fingers tickling him and the mirth making him squirm around. He was vaguely aware of his friends talking more, but the specific words didn’t reach him. He just laughed and laughed.

“Percy,” Grover chided, drawing the word out just slightly, and it could have been seconds or hours later. At some point the tickling had slowed and he was giggling lightly. “You okay there?”

He nodded before he could think of being dishonest. Both of them had quit tickling him, but Percy could still feel phantom nails on his skin and his laughter hadn’t fully petered out yet. At some point, he must have sat up, and he realized belatedly that he was holding on to Annabeth's hands.

“You two are monsters,” Percy gasped dramatically, falling to his back and making the comforter let out a little puff of air.

“Oh please,” Annabeth scoffed, “I don’t need to smell emotions to see how happy the tickling made you.”

“Monsters,” Percy repeated, steadfastly not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Well,” Grover said with a quick poke that made Percy squeak, “this monster is exhausted. Goodnight!”

Within seconds, Grover was laying his head against Percy’s shoulders and letting out soft snores. Annabeth sat on his other side but stared at him a moment.

“Still sad, Seaweed Brain?”

“Never been happier, Wise Girl,” Percy said, shooting for a sarcastic tone and missing miserably. Annabeth nodded.

It was the best sleep the three of them had had in a long time.