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phykios · 3 years ago

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honesty and promise me part 9, co-written with @darkmagyk [read on ao3]

He doesn’t text her later. He doesn’t text her for two weeks. On day fifteen of no contact from Percy, Annabeth begins to accept that whatever they had might be over now.

That’s alright, she reminds herself. She had been working up to breaking it off with him for a while, and he just went ahead and did it for her. Saves her the trouble, really.

October rolls on, wet and cold, inching ever closer to Halloween, and Annabeth finds herself seeking refuge at Piper’s, lending her body and her skills to help her friend finish her collection before her self-imposed deadline. At least the work provides a nice distraction from her silent phone--when Percy stopped texting her, Thalia did, too. Well. That’s that, she supposes.

Still, the fact that they were never officially dating doesn’t stop Annabeth from scrolling through his Instagram at 2 AM like some pathetic ex-girlfriend, screenshotting all her favorite photos so she can look at them later without the threat of accidentally liking them. He’s been posting a lot of stills from that fucking music video again, the divinely crafted muscles of his body on full display in cool, blue light, brown cheekbone and jawline sharper than ever. Beyonce herself even liked a few of them.

God damn she’s a fucking idiot.

It must be the self-pity that’s making her crazy, because when Luke calls her up to be his date/eye candy to some fancy semi-costumed party that weekend at an art gallery on the Lower East Side, she agrees without even thinking about it.

The gallery isn’t that far (certainly much, much closer than the Lincoln Center) but Annabeth has not worn heels in probably up to a calendar year, and she just cannot make herself walk that far. She will not. Her tiny-ass cross-body bag isn’t big enough to hold a separate pair of walking shoes. So she ponies up the exorbitant cab fare to the Lower East Side, asking the driver to drop her at the Seward Park Library so she can elegantly sashay down the sidewalk with the rest of the rich and glamorous.

No one spares her a second glance, which is both relieving and strangely disheartening. She’s become too used to turning heads, she thinks.

Well. One head in particular.

“Hey, Annabeth!” Luke appears from thin air, dressed immaculately as always. His sandy hair has come a long way since business school, now tamed and laid perfectly, but with the faintest touch of dishevelment, like he couldn’t completely fix it after someone’s hands had been all over it. He looks even more handsome than he had on her birthday. He kisses her on the cheek, right on the sensitive skin of an old, failed piercing, and she shivers. “You look incredible.”

Before she left Piper’s apartment that day, Annabeth had raided her small stash of designer clothes and had rediscovered her old faithful that Piper had tried to bury, the midi-length Valentino dress she had worn to the unveiling of her and Leo’s collaboration. It’s a light, powder blue, which can’t be helped, but the lace collar and three-quarter sleeves cover most of her tattoos. She had dug out her tiara, too, making herself a low-key Halloween costume out of the spring season dress. Though the dress doesn’t fit like it did a year ago, Which is depressing as all hell. “Thanks. You, too.”

He beams at her, holding out his arm. “Shall we?”

“Who did you say was the artist, again?” she asks, taking it.

“I didn’t. Something with an ‘L,’ I think. Levelle? Levique? I don’t remember.”

The white gallery walls have been draped in shades of inky blue and midnight purple, all the better to see the crystal sculptures on display: beautiful renderings of swords and skulls, deadly weapons and human bones. There’s something mind-numbingly obvious about holding a spooky, macabre-themed gallery show on Halloween night, entitled “Death and Riches,” but she has to admit, the artwork is stunning. The crystals take what little light is cast from the weak ceiling lamps and multiply it, casting the dark velvets in rainbow reflections. Annabeth feels like she’s walking through the night sky, like she could reach out and rearrange the stars in the constellations. “Look at this,” she murmurs to Luke, stopping them in front of a sculpture of an ancient cavalry sword. “This is incredible.”

He grunts. “Yeah, it’s cool.”

Annabeth fixes him with a look. “‘Cool’? Seriously?”

“What? It’s just a rock.”

She shakes her head. “You are wasted on an art gallery.”

“I am,” he agrees, swiftly. “I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for my bosses.”

“What do you mean?”

Luke steers her away from the sculpture, moving them onward. “One of our assistant executives, he’s about to close a huge deal with some big wig from Europe who runs this massive import/export, but before everything is made official, he wanted to meet all of us.”

“Why here, though?”

“He’s in town for this gallery opening; the artist is his niece, or something.”

Ugh. This is why she swore off business bros: always an ulterior motive with these people. “Hey, I’m going to go look for something to drink, do you want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” he waves her off.

Annabeth, teetering on her towering heels, has to make her way against the current of the crowd towards the refreshments table along the edge of the wall. She feels ten pounds lighter without all the metal in her face, her center of gravity completely out of whack--not to mention she’s having trouble seeing with all this hair in her face. To better disguise her undercut, she had brushed all her hair over her head in one big, voluminous side ponytail on the wrong side of her face. It’s disorienting, to say the least.

Her stomach roils at the display of food, even as her mouth waters a little bit at the bruschetta with olive tapenade. Rather than risk it, she decides to just go with a glass of sparkling cider. She’s been feeling sick and anxious all day long, dreading every moment of this gala; the last thing she wants to do is exacerbate it with champagne.

Before she makes her way back to Luke’s side, however, she wants to take another look at the actual art. Or at least find out who the actual artist is. Whoever they are, they are phenomenally talented.

“Excuse me,” Annabeth says to the staff member manning the food table. “Do you have any more information about the artist? I’d love to see more of their work.”

“Sure!” she chirps, turning round to grab something off a stack of pamphlets beside her. “You can read more about Ms. Levesque here.”

“Thank you,” says Annabeth, taking the glossy brochure. Levesque. Levesque Levesque Levesque. She knows that name, she’s sure of it. Penny in the air…

Slowly, like she’s walking a labyrinth, she makes her way around the gallery. The booklet has descriptions of each piece of art on display, contexts and histories and prices that make her sweat a little. But by the time she returns to the cavalry sword, her head is swimming--probably from the lack of food--her eyes straining in the dim light. She has completely lost track of Luke. She has completely lost track of the time. Annabeth puts her hand to her head, pressing her fingers against the bone of her forehead.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She jolts at the feel of a hand on her shoulder. The owner of the hand pulls away immediately, holding it up in a placating motion.

“Whoa, hey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Annabeth blinks at the person in front of her. He’s blond, tall, with glasses and a scar on his upper lip, and she cannot shake the bone-deep feeling that she’s seen him before.

“You look a little pale. Do you need to sit down?” he asks, electric blue eyes shining with concern.

She shakes her head. “No, no, I’m okay, just a little… the light, you know. Makes it hard to read.”

“I know how you feel,” he says, nodding sagely. “The lighting setup here is absolute murder on my glasses.” Then he sticks out his hand, proud and jutting. “I’m Jason.”

Furiously, she blinks away unbidden tears, turning her sudden sob into a light laugh at the thought of the last time she had met someone named Jason. Or, someone she thought had been named Jason. “Annabeth.” His grip is firm and congenial, like a senator. “Are you with Mercury Exchange, too?”

“Oh, no,” he says, “I’m just here to support the artist. She’s my cousin.”

“Well, congratulations to your cousin on a beautiful gallery opening,” says Annabeth, inclining her head with a smile that he returns. “These sculptures are incredible.”

Jason follows her gaze, and when she looks at him again, he’s smiling. The scar gives his smile an adorable edge. “Hazel is very talented.”

Penny drops. “Hazel Levesque?” Annabeth asks. “Your cousin is Hazel Levesque?”

“Yeah!” Jason beams. “You ever listen to a band called Pluto’s Daughter?”

“You’re Jason Grace?”

That takes him aback, blinking in shock. “Yes… how did you--oh, you know Thalia?” he asks.

No. No no no, this cannot be happening. “Um, not-not really, I just--”

“I just saw her, like, ten minutes ago--”

No no no, she cannot be here, she can’t see Annabeth, not like this-- “Actually,” Annabeth cuts in, “I should really get back to my date, I’m sure he’s worried sick, it was nice meeting you!” And she bolts from the conversation in the general direction of the exit, leaving a very confused member of the cousin consortium in her wake.

Stupid, so stupid, how did she not look this up beforehand, how did she not put it together sooner? She can’t let anyone see her like this, dolled up and--and downright clean. The crowd has turned into an impenetrable wall, the gaps between patrons too small for her to slip between. The dark walls close in around her, suffocating her, and her panic rises, stomach churning, bile crawling up her throat.

From the crush of people, a hand shoots out to grasp hers, and she jumps a foot in the air. “There you are!” says Luke. “Come on, I want you to meet the big wig.”

“Oh, Luke, I don’t know,” she stammers, “I’m-I’m not feeling very well, I think I had a bad burrito earlier, and--”

“It’ll just take a minute,” he wheedles, “We just gotta show up, make some small talk for a few minutes, then I’ll get you home. Sounds good?” But she can’t resist as he pulls her deeper into the gallery.

Like fucking Moses and the fucking Red Sea, the crowd parts before them, laying out a clear path to the three very well dressed men in the center of the room. Even from behind, she can tell that they’re all related: three copies of the same broad build, the same thick, black hair, peppered with grey, the same radiating aura of power and influence, engaged in deep, important conversation.

“Mr. Olympianides?” Luke politely interjects.

As one, the three of them turn to face him, identical gazes sizing them up, pinning them in place. “Yes?” intones the oldest-looking one, his earth-brown eyes cold and dispassionate.

“I think he means me, brother,” says the middle-looking one, jovial. “You’re with Mercury too, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, sir,” says Luke, holding out a hand. “Luke Castellan, it’s an honor to meet you.”

“Ah, of course!” he says, taking Luke’s hand. “I’ve heard great things about you from Prometheus. I understand I have you to thank for the success of the Saturn deal?”

Luke, wholly in his element, smiles his perfectly practiced sycophantic smile--just the right cocktail of humble and arrogant, gracious and gregarious. You can tell he double majored in theater. “It was no trouble at all, really.”

Then he turns his gaze to Annabeth, and she just about faints.

Those eyes. She knows those eyes. Perfectly blue-green, like the waters of the Mediterranean in the sunshine, beneath thick, black eyebrows, with an aquiline nose and a full, salt and pepper beard--she is, without a doubt, looking into the unimaginably handsome face of Percy’s father.

“May I have the name of your lovely lady?” He takes her hand, bringing it up to his for a kiss.

Annabeth’s eyes practically bug out of her head. This is what Percy will turn into in twenty years? Good lord.

“This is my…” Luke trails off, sparing her a glance. “This is Annabeth Chase. She’s an architect here in New York. Annabeth, these are the gentlemen I was telling you about: Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus Olympianides.”

Oddly enough, part of her relaxes, even at Luke’s little fib. If Percy’s father is here, then that means that Percy might not be. She would still have to duck Thalia, but if Luke lets her leave within the next few minutes, that shouldn’t be too hard.

“Chase--like the Boston Chases?” the oldest brother asks. She’s seen those dark eyes, as well, lined with black, and sometimes with glitter.

Annabeth smiles, just a little vacant. She hasn’t had a conversation like this in two years, but back in Boston she’d had them nearly weekly. “That’s the one,” she agrees, letting a giggle out at the end. With business bros her age, they preferred a little bit of a too cool attitude, they’d loved her with all the metal in her face. But the older ones like a giggle. From the corner of her vision, she sees Luke give her just a little bit of a side eye.

“You’re Randolph’s daughter?” Asks the other brother. His eyes are electric blue. Even if Annabeth hadn’t just met Jason, she’d have known this was Thalia’s father from twenty paces.

“I’m his niece,” Annabeth says. “Frederick is my father.”

“The middle one?” Percy’s father says, with a little bit of a grin.

“Yes.” So far, so good--and no one has asked about her mother. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to see that she is not her stepmother’s daughter.

There’s maybe the slightest hint of snideness when Zeus says, “Another Harvard graduate, I assume.”

So there are a lot of Chases at Harvard. On a whim, one night while she should have been writing her Modernism final instead, Annabeth had spent several hours making an academic genealogical chart, inordinately pleased when she found out that her old, decrepit freshman history professor had also taught her father, way back in the day.

“Guilty,” she titters, “but I did attend Miss Minerva’s here in the city.”

“So your Randolph’s niece,” Thalia’s dad asks again, “And Frey Vanir is married to your aunt.”

“Yes.” She bites down on the “sir.” She’s got to have some standards.

“Good families,” Nico and Hazel’s father says, nodding at her, “Chases and Vanir.”

Annabeth has some very, very hazy memories of meeting her own fabulously wealthy extended family, just after her little cousin Magnus had been born. She doesn’t recall much, but she can remember the high, vaulted ceilings of her aunt’s apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, the view of the Public Gardens just down the block, and the very big, very sharp-looking sword hanging above the mantel. The Chases are a well-off family, it’s true, but the Vanir, old money from leftover Nordic peerage are very much on the Olympianides' level, even if Annabeth is the one wearing a tiara that allegedly once belonged to the crown jewels of Sweden.

Athena Pallas is on that same level, too, but Annabeth would rather run into Thalia then talk about her mother. Especially with these people.

Then Poseidon’s gaze fixes on something behind her, and he breaks into a broad, heartbreakingly familiar grin. “Ah, Percy, there you are!” he calls.

The smile drops from her face, and her blood freezes. Caught in the gravity well of a black hole, she turns.

A huge mistake.

Her only thought is How dare he be so handsome.

He’s in a suit she’s never seen before, crisply pressed, but comfortable, simple black but with pearl cuff links, to match his father’s. The sharp lines of the suit hide his beautiful form beneath them in a way that makes Annabeth understand the appeal of lingerie like she never has before. He looms, back discipline-straight, his face scrubbed clean and eyebrows perfectly shaped, and to cap it all off, a pair of simple, classy diamond studs in his ears. Percy Jackson remains, as always, unfairly gorgeous, the perfect specimen of male beauty, and Annabeth is powerless under his gaze.

And he’s just heard every word of their conversation.

“Percy,” his father says, “have you met Annabeth Chase?”

Percy stares at her, mouth open a little. She watches those eyes take her in from top to bottom, hairstyle to clean face to conservative dress to high heels. Never, ever one to hide his emotions, she can see his inner monologue playing out on his face: shock and awe, bewilderment and confusion, jerkily transitioning to… to a politely blank face. Like the surface of the ocean, the wave of his feelings disappear beneath his skin, leaving no trace that they were ever there. “No,” he says, in a tone that broaches no argument. “No, I don’t believe I’ve ever met Annabeth Chase before.”

He takes her in again. Percy was never above leering, but he was always pretty situational about it. He would wait until sex was explicitly on the table, wait until she wanted to see him go just a little bit crazy for her. He doesn’t leer now, cataloguing the dress, the shoes, the tiara.

“Cinderella?” he asks, before the conversation can become awkward and their audience can notice something else.

“Yes,” she says, unable to force the smile she’d used on his father just minutes before. “What girl doesn’t want to be a princess for Halloween?”

“Cinderella was always your favorite, wasn’t she?” Percy’s father asks him. Then he laughs. “Once we went to Disney in Paris, I think, and Percy, all of ten years old, cried because he didn’t think he was going to be able to meet her.”

Percy’s face stays blank. “I was six, Dad.”

Annabeth winces, internally. That was the year, he’d told her, that he’d spent in shoes that didn’t fit because his new ones had been destroyed by bullies taunting him over ballet, and he didn’t want to tell his mother because trying to buy him a second pair of shoes would have been a struggle. She wonders if maybe he was crying because he’d spent the day walking around Disneyland in shoes two sizes too small, and no one had noticed.

His father laughs again. “Still,” he says, “Cinderella is your favorite.”

“I don’t have much use for princesses anymore,” Percy says. “Fairy tales and true love are kid stuff.”

His uncles laugh along with his father, and Luke just frowns at Percy, like he’s not sure what to make of him. But his family seems convinced it's the wisdom of youth.

“Oh,” says Poseidon, “You never know when you can find someone special.” He does leer at Annabeth, just a bit. There isn’t a lot to leer at in this dress, but it's unmistakable. He’s very handsome, but the leer is perhaps the first time she’s thought he didn’t favor his son.

“Were you the one who dated the princess of what it was called?” Thalia’s father asks. “Or was Triton? Or was it both of you?”

“No,” Hazel and Nico’s father says, “no, they both dated Atlas’s girl. Right?”

“Yes, Uncle Hades,” Percy says.

“Zoe?”

Calypso, Annabeth thinks, just before Percy says it out loud and they all nod.

“Is she here?” Thalia’s father asks, glancing around. “Or do you have a different date tonight?”

Annabeth hasn’t even considered Percy having a date. But the idea of it causes a wave of nausea to come over her, of a beautiful woman on Percy’s arm, one of his fellow dancers, or perhaps some heiress, who he could take to fancy parties and show off to his father and uncles.

That could have so easily been you, says a voice in the back of her head.

I’m no one’s arm candy, she wants to yell at herself.

But she can’t, because she’s literally resting on Luke’s arm, while three powerful businessmen ogle her.

She breathes through her nose, and tries to keep from throwing up. Or crying.

“Percy knows its best to come to events like this stag,” Percy’s father winks at him, and then unmistakably at her, “you never know what sorts of lovely creatures you might run into.”

Percy frowns, clearly uncomfortable. “I think Miss Chase definitely came with her boyfriend.” He nods to Luke, and gives him a smile Annabeth has never seen. So forced and fake and clearly unhappy.

She wishes she could stop everything and scream at Percy that Luke’s not her boyfriend. That he could never be. That she does not want Luke, not the way she wants Percy.

But time goes on, and so does Percy. “I don’t like coming to these sorts of things alone, if I can help it.”

And the world nearly collapses out from under her feet.

“The buddy system is important.” He turns his head, clearly searching the milling crowd for someone. Annabeth doesn’t follow his gaze. She doesn’t want to see the woman he willingly shows off to his father. She glances at Luke instead. His face is still placid, but she’s known him a long time, in all sorts of states. He’s clearly uncomfortable.

“Thalia,” Percy’s voice says, not a shout, but a request. Annabeth doesn’t look over at him, or the direction he shouted, but Luke does. He breaks away from her gaze and actually unlinks their arms. His mask slips a little bit more.

At the last possible second Annabeth looks over too.

Thalia Grace looks exactly like the Thalia Annabeth has always known. Her hair is slicked down in some old fashioned pin curls, and she’s wearing a cocktail dress and red soled heels that are too big for her, but you can see the tattoos up and down her arms and legs, underneath her ripped fishnets. Her facial piercings are all still in, and her eyebrows and ears are full of safety pins and the necklace around her neck is made of them too. She’s wearing the same beat up leather gloves as always.

For just a second, Annabeth hates her. Because Thalia is clearly so Thalia, so comfortable in being Thalia, and she can walk around this fucking gala, with buisness bros and old money, and look totally comfortable and confident.

And Annabeth keeps adjusting her sleeves and hair, worried that somethings going to move wrong, and it's going to become obvious that she’s… something?

Then their eyes meet, and it's almost as bad as when Percy showed up. Thalia looks lost, and then she glances to Annabeth’s side, at Luke and her face settles into a frown not unlike Percy’s.

She stops beside Percy who smiles at her, “Thalia and I always use the buddy system.” He says. Then, as he holds out his hand to her, his smile becomes the closest she could ever refer to as cruel. “Thalia, have you met Annabeth Chase? Of the Boston Chases? Her uncle is Frey Vanir.”

Standing tall, bright eyes ringed in black, Thalia takes in all of Annabeth. She’s done this before, when Annabeth was drunk and crying on a dirty bar floor, with a couple hours old tattoo on her arm and a couple of days old ring in her eyebrow. Annabeth had seen her mother on Wednesday for lunch and had destroyed her life by dinner. She doesn’t really remember what they’d talked about, in the wee hours as Friday became Saturday: not being good enough for your family, how New York took your dreams, chewed them up, and spit them out, how your father would never understand you and your mother would never love you. That sort of thing.

She’d been a gross, pathetic mess. But Thalia had seen something in her that night. Had lifted her off the floor and out the door and eventually onto the mattress in the place she’d been renting weekly at the time. She’d taken Annabeth into her world.

Now, it doesn’t look like she sees anything good in Annabeth Chase of the Boston Chases, in designer heels, with a designer bag, wrapped in a designer dress and dripping in jewels. Annabeth knows she looks like a dozen other girls at this event, girls that Luke’s (and maybe Thalia’s and, God, maybe even Percy’s) eyes have wandered over with interest.

“Miss Chase, despite being from Boston,” Percy says to Thalia, “was mentioning some of the schools she went to in New York. I thought maybe you might have known each other through one.”

Percy’s face has gone perfectly blank, but Thalia’s… Thalia’s is angry.

“No,” she says, “we did not go to school together. But Luke and I did.”

It’s Annabeth’s turn to gape, eyes wide as she turns to him, shocked.

Luke tries to smile. “Yes, we did, but--”

Thalia doesn’t let him finish. “Are you still sending weekly audition tapes to Lorne Michaels?” she asks, a snarl that only an idiot would mistake for a grin on her face.

Annabeth would laugh, if she felt like laughing at anything right now.

Luke tries to speak again, but Thalia talks right over him. “No, of course not. You’re doing some business thing.” She eyes his suit and then her three older relatives. “Why else would we be here? I know you never really had the brains for the arts. You were always more interested in the carnal passions of acting.”

Annabeth actually does laugh, just a bit, both because that’s clearly something Luke had once said (and Annabeth remembered him coming straight out of NYU, a Yankee transplant to Boston, she could totally believe it) and because Thalia got Luke’s cadence and tone down perfectly.

But it does nothing to relieve the tension. If anything, it's gone up.

Percy’s father forces his own laugh. “It is so much fun when you run into old friends like this.” He offers, clearly sensing the storm brewing. Percy has at least tried to force it down. “And it's good to see you, as well, Thalia. It's been a long time.”

“It has, Uncle Poseidon,” She agrees.

“Mr. Castellan has left the world of acting for our bland business and finance meetings, but are you still acting?”

Thalia goes very still.

Annabeth, in the two years she’s known Thalia Grace, has never even once heard her so much as allude to acting in anything. She set up equipment and tended bars for cash. The only acting she ever did was pretending not to be hungover.

It’s a slight movement, but she sees Thalia reach out and grip Percy’s arm. He meets it, holding on. Steadying.

He understands what’s going on here.

“She’s not,” Thalia’s father says. He’s been polite so far this evening, but now he sounds annoyed. “All that talent and all that promise, and she’s thrown it all away.” He looks at Thalia, electric eyes to electric eyes, and shakes his head. “You could have been just like your mother.”

Percy, Luke, and Hades all let out a sharp breath.

Thalia’s smile, sharp, turns acidic. “I can't be,” she says. “I don't drive. So I couldn't drive myself into a tree.”

Her father narrows his gaze, mouth tight. Annabeth has actually seen that look on Thalia’s face before. Poseidon looks suddenly very sorry he ever opened his mouth.

Thalia turns to Percy. “Do you think Hazel would mind if I committed a murder and ruined her big night?”

It's a very Thalia thing to say, but Annabeth has never really considered the theatricality of her before. This is an artist working her craft, taking words and turning them into daggers.

“Hazel loves performance art,” Percy says. “And it is on theme.”

Thalia nods and then looks at her father. She smiles. “That sounds like a lot of work, so, instead, why don’t I do just what you want. I’ll be my mother. I’ll go get fabulously drunk and embarrass you horribly. Unfortunately, this is a 21+ event, so I won’t be able to endanger any children in the process. But you never know.”

She spins on her heels, and walks away.

“I'm going to make sure she doesn’t enganger any children just to prove a point,” Percy says. “I'll see you later.” He nods to his family, and then offers Annabeth a very formal handshake. “So nice to meet you.”

She’s missed his hands on her. She doesn’t want to let go.

But she lets him, and he moves over to give Luke one, too. He leans in, just a little bit, and lowers his voice so only Luke and Annabeth can hear. “You shouldn’t make a scene in a public place. But you deserve to know, she’s been cheating on you since May.”

Annabeth can’t breathe for a moment. The perfect man, handsome and charming and crueler than she ever believed possible.

Her stomach rolls again.

Behind her, she hears Poseidon say, “Do you often tell women whose mothers’ acting career dried up and then descended into substance abuse that you hope they have the same career as said mothers? Because wow."

“I’m sorry,” Luke whispers. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m very sorry.”

He turns to speak with the three brothers, to formally and probably seamlessly untangle themselves from all of this, and she tries to turn too, but the effort to spin gets too much.

She’s still nauseous, feeling light-headed. The stiletto heels only add to the problem. She shakes and stumbles, right into Luke, who catches her on one arm, Poseidon on the other. Annabeth has to work very hard not to yank herself away from him.

“Are you alright?” Poseidon’s accent isn’t the same as Percy’s at all, his hands too smooth. There are differences between the two that she can focus on.

“I haven’t been feeling well tonight,” she admits, if it will get her out of here faster.

“Do you need to sit down?” Asks Poseidon. “I’m sure there is a medical professional around here.”

“No, no, thank you,” she says. “I should probably head out, If that’s okay,” she tells Luke, apologetically.

He nods, finally complying with her need for escape. “Of course.”

When Poseidon lets go of her arm, she basically falls into Luke. It's embarrassing. Her eighteen year old self is probably cheering. Unfortunately for her, that crush was killed two great heartbreaks ago. Now, it’s just quiet and awkward as they walk away. “Sorry,” she says.

“Sorry? I should be thanking you. That was a really good excuse.” Then he looks at her--really looks. “It wasn’t an excuse, was it?”

She shakes her head, miserable.

“Is it because of that guy? Percy? Do you know him?”

She nods.

“Why does he think you’ve been cheating on me since May?”

“Because he thinks you and I are a couple, and I’ve been sleeping with him since May.”

Luke lets out a low whistle. “You and those business bros.” He shakes his head. Sometimes he doesn’t quite have the self-awareness that he should, she thinks. “I blame myself. If I didn’t invite you to that MBA party, maybe you wouldn’t have lost your virginity to that asshole in my cohort.”

“Percy’s not a business bro,” she says, defending him, though for the life of her she doesn’t know why. “He’s a ballet dancer with NYCB. It… ended about 3 weeks ago. I’d tell you about it, but I do actually feel pretty horrible.”

Luke frowns at her. “You want me to get you a cab?”

Annabeth shakes her head. “I know you have more business bro things to do. I can get myself home.”

He waits several seconds, before giving her a hug and a kiss on the forehead, wishing her goodnight, leaving her in the middle of the mingling crowd and the crystal displays.

Annabeth shuffles towards the exit, passing the food table. Even the smell makes her feel like she’s going to throw up. Walking faster doesn’t exactly help.

Eventually, she manages to get out of the main gallery, where the lobby and coat check had been set up, very much regretting letting Luke go. Right now, walking outside and finding a cab might as well be like attempting a quick little jaunt up Mt. Everest. Head aching, stomach rolling, she slumps against the wall outside the coat check, laying her warm cheek against the cool wall.

That’s when she hears the muffled shouting.

Two voices she knows intimately.

“How can you say that?” Thalia whisper-screams. “In what possible universe are they the same?”

“How are they not?” Percy quietly shouts back. “They’re exactly the same.”

“I can’t even believe you’re defending her. She lied to us--she hurt you, just like--”

“Don’t you dare try and tell me you’re doing this for me. This is about you and your problems. Like always.”

“I don’t have to listen to this shit.” Then comes the telltale clacks of Thalia stomping about in her high heels. She flings open the door of the coat closet, and comes face to face with Annabeth--who probably looks about like death warmed over. Thalia takes one look at Annabeth, sneers, then stalks away, anger sparking off of her like static shock.

Hot on her heels comes Percy, equally furious. "Then find someone else’s couch to crash on tonight!" He shouts at her retreating form.

Then he sees Annabeth.

She hopes she never has to see him that angry ever again.

It takes a couple of pounding heartbeats, but he visibly dials it back down, rage giving way to something a little less intense, the bitterness bleeding out of him until he’s only just annoyed. “Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”

There’s a million and one things she wants to tell him; her mind is a hurricane, every thought and feeling moving at a hundred and fifty miles per hour, sentences forming on her tongue in one second and ripped away the next. She wants to tell him that she never meant to hurt him, but all that comes out is, “Luke isn’t my boyfriend.”

“What, he dump you already?”

“We’ve never dated,” she says. “He’s just a friend. I haven’t cheated on anyone.”

“Oh, so you’ll get all dolled up for some guy that isn’t your boyfriend, but you couldn’t be bothered to find a pair of jeans without holes in them to come see my show?”

Her stomach lurches, in both anger and regret. She did do those things. “You told me that you didn’t care what I wore.”

“And I didn’t, because I thought you didn’t either.”

“I don’t!”

“Oh yeah? Is that why you parted your hair on the wrong side? Because you didn’t care if someone would see your undercut?”

She can’t say anything to that, because of course, he had hit the nail on the head.

“I mean, Thalia may be messed up, but at least she has the guts not to hide it, but you--” he sputters, gesturing angrily to her head, “you put on a tiara and pretend you haven’t been gutter trash for the last two years.”

Indignation rises in her. Gutter trash? “You’re one to talk--you can’t go anywhere nicer than Antonio’s for dinner but you own a custom fucking Italian suit and diamond earrings?”

He scowls. “Oh, I'm sorry, just so we're clear, Kym got me this suit so I would stop, and I quote, 'embarrassing her with my poverty.' I borrowed the earrings from Nico. But you're right. The same Christmas I had my power and heat turned off in Paris, my dad got me these pearl cufflinks.” He raises his hands, brandishing them. “Just what I always wanted!”

“Don’t give me that--the man takes you, his bastard,” she spits, “on the family vacation to the Greek islands every goddamn summer! You think he wouldn’t drop a couple million for you if you asked? Meanwhile, I had to grovel at my mother’s feet for years for even the barest hint of support--”

“That is not even remotely the same thing, and you know it!”

“It isn’t?” She laughs, cruelly. “Because from where I’m standing, we were both left at the mercy of our shitty parents, but you’re too much of a coward to tell your father to fuck off when you really want to.”

That just about sets him off. His eyes darken like sea storms, raging and thunderous. “Don’t you dare try to pin this on me. You’re the one that lied to me for months, to Thalia for years--Jesus, Annabeth, was any of it real? Was everything you said to me over the last five months just some game to you?”

“How dare you,” she hisses. “How dare you even ask me that when you know full well you’re the only person I’ve shown my designs to in years.”

“Oh, really,” he says, and she goes cold. “What about the one that won the Eta Industries award? Did you not show that to anyone? Or did you get that one because they knew you were Annabeth Chase of the Boston Chases.”

Clenching her fists, she growls, standing up against the wall. “Leo and I put our hearts and souls into that project, and we won, fair and fucking square. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, seeing as you probably only got into NYCB because someone cashed a seven figure check.”

She doesn’t know if she’s ever said anything she believes less.

Percy laughs, an ugly, bitter thing. “If it had been that easy, I would have asked him to do that five years ago.”

Then he frowns. “Are you… feeling okay?”

She is not, as a matter of fact, but it’s no longer his fucking business, now is it. Annabeth opens her mouth to tell him so, then abruptly closes it as a little bit of vomit erupts from her esophagus. She covers her mouth, pressing against her teeth, trying to will it back inside.

Warm hands encircle her shoulders, holding her up as her legs threaten to buckle beneath her. “Come on,” he says, gruffly.

Together, they stagger into the single-stall bathroom, when Annabeth rips himself from his grasp, dropping to her knees before the toilet, and hurls. Faintly, she hears the lock of the door click behind her, then jumps at the feel of his hand on her back. “Leave me alone,” she spits, hocking bile into the toilet.

He doesn’t answer, only gently repositions her braid behind her shoulder so she doesn’t get any vomit on it.

She will not admit that his hand on her body is the best she’s felt all day. She will not.

“Ugh,” she moans, in between bouts of bile. “Fuck me.”

“Jesus, what did you eat?”

Annabeth has barely eaten all day, so it’s mostly sparkling cider and a bit of the olive tapenade from earlier.

Finally, after several excruciating minutes, it subsides. She feels twenty pounds lighter, like she’s vomited up all of her organs. Now if only she could have barfed up her heart as well. She’s sure Percy can feel how hard it’s beating, just from being around him again.

When the hell did she let herself get this worked up over a fucking guy, anyway? She hasn’t felt like this since she was nineteen, moping over a missed connection. But she’s not nineteen anymore, she’s a grown woman who doesn’t need anyone taking care of her. She can handle it herself.

“Feeling better?” he asks.

She coughs, attempting to clear her throat, throwing him a glare over her shoulder. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

“I said,” she growls, fingers tightening around the bowl of the toilet. “Leave me al--” Her genius retort is, sadly, cut off by another bout of vomiting, so forceful that her tiara comes flying clean off. It would have landed straight into the bowl, were it not for Percy and his lightning reflexes, snatching it out of the air before the crown jewels of Sweden landed in a puddle of barf.

When she comes back to herself, she realizes that she’s crying.

The second wave passes, and she can breathe again. Her awareness returns to her in pieces, starting with the pinch in her knees from kneeling on the cold, hard floor for too long, then the cool porcelain of the toilet, oddly soothing against her flushed skin. Her mouth tastes like you’d expect, and she spits, trying to clear it in vain.

“That’s it,” Percy murmurs behind her, rubbing gentle circles on her back. “Just let it out.”

Her chest heaves on a sob, quickly disguising it as a cough. Why won’t this man just leave?

When another five or so minutes pass without any more upchuck, she pulls away from him, practically crawling back until she hits the bathroom wall, the floor pressing up against her bones, and she kicks off her heels. Everything is too cold and too hot, Annabeth practically shaking out of her skin, taking in huge, gulping gasps of air. Faintly, she hears the door open and close, softly and carefully.

Good. He’s gone.

Her whole body shudders. Stubborn tears force their way out of her, crawling down her cheeks, mixing with the taste of vomit and lipstick.

But she can’t wallow in it for too long, because a minute later, Percy comes back, crouching down next to her, offering her a plastic cup of water. “Here.”

She takes a swig, swishing it around her mouth. Staggering to her bare feet, she shambles over to the sink, spitting it out.

There’s no way Annabeth can avoid looking at herself too closely in the mirror, but she tries, her eyes skating over her smeared mascara and running foundation, taking in her (thankfully) vomit free braid and her bare head. “Where,” she coughs. “Where is my tiara?”

“I got it.” In the mirror’s reflection, Percy holds it up. “Wouldn’t want the crown jewels of England to wind up in the toilet.”

“Sweden,” she says, on reflex.

“What?”

Why can’t she just shut her stupid mouth, for God’s sake-- “They were part of the Swedish crown jewels.”

He stares at her in the reflection, his eyes unfathomable. “I just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” She asks, a question to which she really doesn’t want to know the answer.

“How I keep letting this happen.” Percy closes his eyes, shaking his head, raising his chin to the fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Like this, all the angles and contours of his stupidly beautiful face are thrown in sharp, brutal relief. He looks thin, somehow, the quiet sadness of his expression carved into the lines of his frown, of his squeezed shut eyes and the grim line of his lips. “I thought I was done with letting rich girls fuck me to make a point.”

Funny, how a simple sentence can feel like a knife in the stomach.

Percy, always so tall, slumps his shoulders, running a hand over his face. In seconds, the sadness is gone, replaced with a blank void of expression. “Will you let me call you a cab to take you home?” He asks, because of course, he’d never leave her alone like this. He’s too fucking good.

Annabeth nods into the mirror.

He sidles up to her, slinging her arm around his shoulder. In his other hand, he carries her shoes and her tiara, dangling limply from his fingers. For a wild second she wants to turn and kiss him. She’s wanted to do that for weeks. She wants to wipe the tears and vomit off her face, stick back on her tiara, and go back to the party on his arm. They could make a beautiful picture, she thinks, Poseidon Olympianides’ son and Annabeth Chase of the Boston Chases. But when she tries to move, maybe to make a big mistake, she sways, unsteady. His grip on her waist tightens, holding her close, but his face is turned stubbornly out. He won’t even look at her.

The cool night air and the smell of city dirt is a welcome balm on her flushed face. In no time at all, Percy has hailed a cab, letting her hang off of him as she falls heavily onto the seat. With the utmost care and precision, he gently places her shoes and her crown on her lap, as controlled and careful as when he puts down a fellow dancer. There is no mistake here, she knows. Their little dance together is over. It feels like the end of one of those romantic movies from the 50s her dad used to love to cry over.

“Take her home, please,” he informs the cab driver, giving him her address, then without even sparing her a glance, he closes the door on her.

But greedy for one last look, Annabeth presses her face to the window as the driver pulls away from the curb. The night is dark and the streetlamps are unhelpful, but she can still see him as he cups his hands to his face, glowing like he holds a little star between his fingers, can see him tilt his head up and exhale, sending cigarette smoke up into the heavens.

#this one's a long boi folks #long and sad #but this is as bad as it gets! we've hit rock bottom!#it's all uphill from here i promise #pjo au #ballet au #percabeth #pjo fic #the rivalry ends here

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