#bipercabeth

[it really be your own people sending you angst prompts smh love u tho queen]

“Why are you awake?” Annabeth asks as she rubs the sleepiness from her own eyes. She looks down at her phone to see the time, scowling as she sees it reads 1:05am. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”

Amelia slowly inches her way out of the shadowy doorway and into the dim light of the kitchen. “I need to ask you something,” she says sheepishly.

Annabeth neatly stacks the sketches she had been working on and tells herself to stay calm. “Okay,” she says in as even a tone as she can manage.

Lately, the Jackson home has been a muted version of its usually boisterous self. Dinners are quiet and stiff, and weekends have turned into battlegrounds with no winners in sight. Even her and Percy have withdrawn from each other some, unsure how to provide comfort when they each feel so unsteady. All because of one not-so-little offer that had knocked their world off its axis.

“What happens if I join the hunters?”

The question may as well be a punch to the gut. Annabeth’s fist closes around her pencil, which she begins to twist nervously as she tries to keep her nerve.

“What do you mean?” she asks, unable to look at Amelia while she speaks.

“I mean,” Amelia says as she slides into the chair across from her mom. “Will I ever be allowed to come home?”

Annabeth’s eyes stay on the table. “Lady Artemis has pretty strict rules for her hunters. I’m not sure how much time you really get to do your own thing.”

“Actually,” Amelia starts. “I was asking more about you and dad.”

Annabeth looks up then, and she can feel the wrinkles in her brow. “What?”

“If I join the hunters, will I… will I still get to be a Jackson?”

Annabeth is sure the sound of her heart cracking must have woken up the whole block. “Amelia—“

“I’m not saying I am gonna join, I just think I should know all the facts. That’s what you would do, right?”

Annabeth swallows hard and nods, not yet able to speak.

“Cause… I really like being a Jackson. I think I’d like to stay one for a while.”

“I know the feeling,” Annabeth says with an exhale and the slight upturn of her mouth. She puts her pencil down and holds both her hands out, palms facing up. “Here.”

Amelia slides her hands into her mom’s, sighing as they grab hold of each other. They sit in silence for a moment, enjoying some peace in the eye of the storm they have been weathering for weeks.

“I know things have been really hard,” Annabeth finally says, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “For all of us. And probably especially for you. But your dad and I… We are always going to love you no matter what. Even if you make choices we don’t fully understand.”

Amelia sniffles and turns to hide her face in her shoulder. “Do you hate me, mom?”

Annabeth squeezes her daughter’s hands, getting her attention back. “I couldn’t hate you if I tried, Amelia.”

“But you’ve been so mad.”

“I’ve been scared,” Annabeth admits, breathless. “The two emotions usually get mixed up in my head. Just ask your dad.”

Amelia laughs a bit, the bounce of it dislodging a tear from her eye. “So you and dad,” she says with another sniffle. “You’re not gonna, like… disown me if I join?”

Annabeth shakes her head. “Never. I mean, this family doesn’t make sense without you.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” Annabeth assures her as a tear slowly slides down her cheek. “I mean, if you’re not in this family who on earth is gonna make sure we obey maritime law?”

“That’s a good point,” Amelia agrees. “Dad’s a lost cause.”

“And who would remind me that I’m a better architect than all the men at my company put together?”

Amelia shrugs. “It’s just true.”

“You know what else is just true?” Annabeth asks as she tries to hold back a sob.

“What?”

“You, Amelia, are the greatest legacy Athena could ever ask for. You’re strong and brave, and so loyal. Not to mention how wicked smart you are.”

“Mom—“

“I have never doubted why the hunters want you,” Annabeth continues. “Anyone in their right mind would want you on their team. And I… I’m selfish. I’ve been dreaming about watching you grow up since the first time I heard your heartbeat, and even now, I’m not ready to give that up.”

“I get that,” Amelia says quietly.

“You have to decide this for yourself, Amelia. I know that. Even though as your mom it scares the hell out of me, I know what it is to make this choice.”

“I heard the story.”

“That was a really hard time for me and your dad, too. In a different way, of course, but also really similar. We were scared to lose each other, and now we are both dealing with the thought of losing part of you.”

“You’d still have me.”

“I know, but I also know it wouldn’t be the same.”

Amelia pulls a hand back and puts her elbow on the table, resting her cheek against her clenched fist. “Probably not.”

Annabeth forces herself to take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “Definitely not, but if joining the hunters is really what you want, we would all find a way to be okay.”

Amelia wipes a tear from her face.

“Listen,” Annabeth says, squeezing Amelia’s hand again. “I didn’t always feel like I had my mom on my side, and so when I had you, I promised myself I would do everything in my power to make sure that you never felt that way. So please… please just know that no matter what you choose, you are always gonna have me. Always.”

“Are you sure?” Amelia asks, her voice hoarse.

They look into each other’s eyes for a moment, grey meeting blue like the ocean on a cloudy day, and despite the anxiety that keeps its vice grip on Annabeth’s heart, she knows her daughter needs this. And so, she provides.

for emma lol sorry babes 😘

Percy has spent most of his life sleeping by himself in bed. He’s shared a bedroom plenty, with his mom in one of their tiny apartments after she managed to leave her husband, in boarding school dorms and then college. Then he graduated and got a shitty job, then a slightly better job, then he had savings in his bank account for the first time in his life and got an apartment of his own.

Then he met Annabeth.

He doesn’t think he can go back to sleeping alone. He still does, a few times a week, because they don't live together and as much time as they spend at one another’s apartments, sometimes their schedules just don't work out. But tonight is not one of those nights. It’s a Wednesday and he is sprawled across Annabeth’s mattress, cocooned in her comforter and blankets because the winter chill is clinging stubbornly to the city. He blinks, breathing in through his nose as he wakes up and finds himself alone. The only sounds are the ticking of the clock on Annabeth’s dresser, the patter of rain on the window, and the result of sheets as he crawls over to fumble for his phone. The screen is too bright as it lights up with a photo of Annabeth sticking her tongue out at him below the time which reads 3.06am.

He rolls over and stares at the ceiling for a minute or two. She can’t be in the bathroom because there’s no light coming from the hall.

Resolving that he won’t be falling asleep again until he finds her, Percy drags himself out of bed, wincing at the cold and grabbing the sweater he had tossed over the chair in front of Annabeth’s dresser. He pulls it over his head as he shuffles down the hall towards the kitchen, where a faint light is coming from.

It’s the overhead light of the oven, it turns out, and it casts the little room in strange light. He finds Annabeth perched on the counter with her back to him, hunched over the bowl of cereal she is eating from slowly.

Sometimes she can’t sleep. It’s not always for bad reasons, but can be. At times, she is just restless until she has sketched out the idea in her head or written a note on her to do list for the morning. He wakes up to find her squinting at a book held a few inches from her face, using the light from her phone screen so as not to wake him up. Sometimes, though, she is not doing anything but staring at the ceiling as her breathing speeds up. He has learnt - from her - how to help her shake herself out of those moods, how to encourage her to talk about what thoughts have sent her spiralling, how to rationalise against them without making her close up even more.

He doesn’t think this is one of those nights.

The light from the oven casts harsh shadows across her face. Her hair is a crows nest barely held together by her favourite scrunchie and her socked feet bounce against the cupboard as she loosely swings her legs back and forth the way she does when she watches him cook them dinner.

He pushes off the door frame towards her and watches her head turn as she finally notices his presence.

“Oh,” she says around a mouthful of cereal. She swallows. “Hey.”

not pictured: the 30 minute debate they had on the right way to wear the croc loop

fic rec! 3K, percabeth comfort fic

Summary: Annabeth doesn’t know what to do with anger—her own or others’. So when the tendons in Percy’s hands strain around his silverware at dinner, Annabeth can only fumble. The problem isn’t reading Percy; it never has been. Annabeth knows what’s hurting him and why. It’s the fixing part she struggles with.

i know u said u weren’t ready to be roasted but I Am Roasting U <3

yes u are <3 for many reasons <3 anyway ur writing Genuinely makes me feel mediocre about mine it makes me want to never write ever again even tho i Know i dont see ur first drafts and you only share edited, polished versions of things but still. also u looked rlly pretty on zoom the other day when we watched moon knight and i was gonna say it but then annabeth casting was announced and i forgot so im saying it now

oh this one’s a doozy, thank u emma 😋

(TLO AU)

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Percy doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it—the bloodlust. It starts out as a whisper, a simple low hum drifting across the nape of his neck. It crawls in his ear and settles inside his brain and every time he uncaps Riptide, a single persistent thought crosses his mind: Show no mercy.

And he doesn’t. Not when a hoard of monsters comes barrelling through their ranks. Not when he sees the other campers on their feet, but flagging, exhaustion bogging them down as monster after monster charges at them. Percy holds his own on the front lines, raising his voice to be heard, “Fall back!”

He repeats it again for good measure and the piercing, confused stares from them quickly fade as he gains the attention of every monster in his vicinity. A grin slides across his face and he gives Riptide a twirl. 

OK SO

I don’t know if any of you all have heard of Brother Jed, and I really hope that you have not, but goes to universities across the US to talk about who was going to Hell (specifically gays, fornicators, non-Christians, people with piercings, people with tattoos, people with dyed hair, non-submissive women, and sometimes various non-white minorities depending on the sign). I think he even had a show on TLC, but don’t give this man any more attention. 

So in my freshman year he and his wife came and I was caught flat-footed, but I noticed two things:

He drew a huge crowd of people who told him he was trash

A friend of mine, Amanda, who organized a Love-In to oppose him, which is to say she got most of the crowd to sit down right in front of Brother Jed and talk calmly together, completely ignoring him. 

So I went about my business, doing college things, for several months. Now in my university I was involved in a scholarship program that had a lounge on campus and all the freshmen lived together on one floor of the dormitories. For room inspection days I would make chocolate chip cookies to cheer everyone up and bribe my RA to ignore some things in our room and after I moved out I continued to make cookies for the lounge or the occasional funding bake sale. As good as the baked goods were, though, they never generated much money.  

I don’t remember when the idea came to me or who suggested it, but one day I realized that selling baked goods to a crowd would probably increase our revenue, and no one gathered a bigger crowd that Brother Jed.

At that moment the gears in my head started turning. With the help of my friends Adam and Amanda, we got the permits to have a bake sale and decided to really stick it to the man by making all the food Hell themed. All the proceeds would go to a non-discriminatory charity, and we would make sure he knew it. Adam was onboard for the lolz, but Amanda got an absolutely possessed gleam in her eye; she was in this for blood.

In planning for our long-simmering revenge, Adam and I checked Brother Jed’s schedule to find out exactly when he would be coming to our university, but there ran into a slight snag; our state has a system of universities all run under the same name just in different cities. Jed had only listed the generic name of the university and 3 days in which he would be touring the state. Since we couldn’t tell which day he would be there, and baked goods must be fresh, Adam and I both realized a horrible truth:

We would have to ask Brother Jed. 

We flipped a coin and Adam lost, so he bit the bullet and used the contact information on the site to email him for clarification. We were both prepared to stew on this for days, but happily Brother Jed’s wife, Sister Cindy, responded in 5 minutes to clarify the exact days she and her husband would be there. She followed up a minute later asking if we were eager to ‘share the word of God,’ but neither Adam nor I had the heart to tell her our true purpose.

Months passed, and finally the long-awaited day came. I burned a sick day and skipped all my classes to man the table for the entire time. A little after noon, they showed up in full force. Last time he was there, it was only Jed and his wife. This time they had a whole troupe; a ‘formerly gay’ boyscout, an unrelated preacher, Jed’s three daughters, Sister Cindy, and the man himself, all under the protection of campus security.

I had been at the table since 7:30 that morning, and awake since 6:30 making my cookies, which I wanted to be very fresh to be more enticing. That whole morning had been slow, but immediately after the band of bigots arrived things began to pick up. And BOY did they pick up. Soon there was a crowd of 50 people, all gathered to protest Jed’s presence on campus. 

And getting mad is hungry work. 

The hot, fresh, Hell themed baked goods were flying off the cheap plastic table; Forbidden Fruit apple-oat bars went first, followed swiftly by the bak-LAVA. After people realized we were there to oppose Jed (thanks in no small part to me yelling like a Carnie for four hours), things really picked up. Even people who were just passing through picked up a snack just because they knew we were there to oppose Jed. 

It was late October, so the sun set early and the band of bigots were wrapping up for the day. The crowd had dwindled to about 20, and at the table it was just me, Amanda, Adam, and our last cookie. We were debating what to do with it, and I suggested maybe we should use it to thank Jed in a final twist of the knife. Amanda’s response was immediate, energetic, and slightly terrifying:

“That’s an excellent idea, Zach. Go, give it to him yourself.”

So I picked up that last cookie, made my way through the crowd, and asked for quiet. The protesters that I had fed happily obliged. I took that moment to inform Brother Jed that his hideous presence had resulted in good; he had raised $600 for charity, and as a thank you we were going to give him the last cookie. 

I know it sounds fake, but the crowd actually cheered as I offered that last cookie to Brother Jed. Sister Cindy deigned to relieve me of it, but not before shooting me the most soulless look of utter hatred that I have ever encountered. It’s not hyperbolic, but whenever I think of true evil, even today, I remember her eyes. 

In any case, thereafter we all packed up and went home. After my voice recovered, Adam, Amanda, and I began to eagerly plan our attack for the next year; Adam wanted broader participation and set a goal of $1500 to raise; Amanda suggested large signage to clarify our stance and save my voice. I said we ought to donate our proceeds to a local LGBT+ youth homeless shelter. All this was in motion when I checked Brother Jed’s schedule to plan out the time.

Imagine my surprise to find that not only was our university omitted from the schedule, but our entire STATE was being passed over. While nothing is for sure, I like to think that it was our Blasphemous Bakesale that scared him off. It was the only thing that had changed in his most recent visit. 

And that’s how I used fresh baked goods to banish a hate-monger from my university. I have since graduated, but it has been close to four years since I pulled this stunt and he still has not come back.