runaway.

‘‘ i was a child, i don’t recall much. i think i liked the food? ’’ a light chuckle and blue eyes lit up. ‘‘ and i heard so … any recommendations where i can find a sturdy pair of boats? i’d hate to wind up in a … tourist trap. ’’

Annabeth waves the words off. “I’ll take time for myself later,” she insists. “I’m fine. Bit tired, but really, I’m okay.” She smiles when Wylan kisses the top of her head. She’s so lucky to have him in her life, she really is. She needs to do more to make sure her siblings all know how lucky she is to have them. “Ups and downs? You know you can come talk to me about things if you want, okay? Offering each other advice goes both ways.” Annabeth’s eyebrows go up. “Really? I don’t wanna’ drag him along if he’ll find it boring. You’re my brother, I’m allowed to drag you to stupid things.” She grins, clearly joking. “Maybe he can help out with the festival in a couple weeks? I need all the help I can get with that.” Annabeth chuckles. “We’ll get things sorted with this. It just leads to us having to sort more things, and more, and more…. okay now I’m just stressing myself out.”

“You make sure you do.” Still with a worried furrow between his brows, he just let it go, knowing that arguing about it would only cause further delays. Better to just get this over with, and then rest later on. “You know, I will. It’s nothing bad. We might be spending the summer apart - but that’s...really not a big deal.” He rolled his eyes, “Hey, by law - Jesper is kinda like your brother too. He should also be dragged into stupid things.” It was a lame argument and he knew this was a thing amongst his siblings and although partners are more than welcome to join, it’s silly to make it mandatory. “I’ll let him know. And hey....breathe.” He gestured for her to calm down, “You know the drill - only a minimal amount of stress can make this as productive as possible. Anything more than that can be catastrophic.”

Annabeth manages to smile a bit. “I’ll tell you, I promise,” she says, though she’s not sure she would. Her relationship with Percy has always been something she’s quite protective of; she doesn’t like to admit when she’s struggling. 

She can see the interest in Wylan’s eyes, and it makes her feel a bit better, and more confident in her idea. She laughs. “I might bring it up at the counselors’ meeting, once I’ve got some proper plans drawn up,” she says before her eyebrows go up with surprise. “Really? Wylan, that’s amazing! I’m so happy for you guys.” She hugs him. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of this?” It’s weird sometimes to think about the lives of her siblings outside of camp. Camp’s been her entire life for more than ten years; her life outside isn’t really something she thinks about or has. She smiles with relief when Wylan says it isn’t impossible. “It’d be a long project,” she says. “I mean a whole city…. we couldn’t do it on our own, that’s too much…. maybe I can talk to Tyson….” She drifts off, getting lost in her own thoughts before she snaps back to attention. “I’ll have to canvas around here, see if I can find somewhere that could work or that’s big enough to support everything we’d need.”

“Alright. You’ll surely have my vote when it comes to that.” He nodded firmly, glad that Annabeth had such a wonderful vision for the camp. It’s what the camp deserved, a development long overdue. He was definitely on board with this innovation. “Mhm, thank you.” Although he couldn’t really tell her the lengths of what he and his friends had to do to get that business back. They all had their rough pasts to hide and Wylan was no exception. “Guess you haven’t asked....?” He said instead as a lame excuse, and then went on, “Now that my mother was fully recovered, she’s able to take more responsibilites in the business. And I’m by her side as her only heir.” It was convenient that most of them don’t really talk much about what happens outside of camp. He didn’t really want any judgment from his siblings if they found out what he truly was - or lengths of what he could do for the sake of revenge and retribution against his stepfather.