#clarisabeth

Clarrise meet Annabeth when Annabeth was seven and she was eight. It was Annabeth’s first day at camp. Clarrise had heard a bit about Thalia, the duaghter of Zeus, the forbidden duaghter of Zeus, who saved Annabeth’s and an older boy named Luke’s lives. Annabeth was at the tree that used to be Thalia. A knife was in her hand.

Clarrise watched as the other girl craved something into the tree. Into the girl.

“Hey you!” Clarrise yelled at Annabeth. Annabeth turned around, she glared at Clarrise and made her way over the where she was standing.

“What?” Annabeth asked her, her voice was horse. Probably from crying.

“Crying is for sissys.” Clarrise yelled at her. Annabeth glared at her and then punched her in the face. Blood dripped down from Clarrise’s nose as Annabeth ran away from her.

“Hey, Annabeth.” Clarrise said to the duaghter of Athena. So much had happened in the last few years. Percy. Luke. The sea of monsters. Thalia. Chris. The Labyrinth. Somehow the two girls were now friends because of these events. Some horrible, some great.

“Hi Clarrise.” Annabeth said, her eyes were glued to the screen of her new laptop.

“Are you okay?” Clarrise asked her.

Annabeth unglued herself from the screen,“What? Why do you ask? Is someone dead? Did something bad happen?”

“No. You missed breakfast and lunch. Come on, you need to eat dinner or else I will smash that laptop.”

“Touch this laptop and I will stab you. But fine. Just give me a second-

Clarrise picked up the smaller girl. Annabeth didn’t fight back. She just grumbled something about being hungry.

Silena was a strange part of their group. But they made a great trio. Ares, Athena and Aphrodite together. War, wisdom and love. A perfect mix.

Of course Silena saw things Clarrise didn’t.

"I know you love her.” Silena said to Clarisse one day while the two of them were at the lake.

“Who?” Clarrise asked.

“Annabeth. I see the way you look at her. And the way she looks at you. Make your move soon. Okay? I want you two to be happy since both of your lives aren’t full of love.” Silena said.

“I will I just don’t know how to. I’m not good with feelings.” Clarrise frowned.

“Do in your own time. But with this war…losing a love without ever telling them how you felt is just as awful as someone your with.” Silena said.

“Who was it?”

“No one. I haven’t lost anyone like that yet. I just, it’s something a child of Aphrodite always knows.” Silena smiled, but it was a sad smile.

“Well Prissy’s sixteenth birthday is only a few weeks away. If I do tell Annabeth that I love her I guess I better do it soon.” Clarrise sighed.

“My cabin isn’t going. Neither of you can convince me otherwise.” Clarrise snapped at her two best friends. She was supposed to have confessed her feelings for Annabeth before today. Before they were about to leave for what may be the end of the world.

Clarrise felt tears building up in her eyes as the two girls walked away.

She wiped them away. No way she was gonna cry.

Silena was dead. Silena was the traitor. That was why Silena wanted to see Clarrise tell Annabeth about her feelings. Gods all she wanted was to protect them and Beckendorf.

Clarisse was gonna kill Luke if she ever saw him again. Not for herself, who never saw him as anything other than another camper or the enemy. Not for Silena, who is now free from his abuse. For Annabeth, who saw him as a brother, who saw him as family, who has suffered greatly because of him.

Unfortunately Clarrise didn’t get to kill Luke. He was already dead when she got into the throne room.

Clarrise found Annabeth by herself in the Athena cabin. She was looking over some plans to rebuild Olympus.

“Hey. Annabeth. I need to talk to you.” Clarrise said, leaning against Annabeth’s desk.

“Yes, Clarrise?”

“Annabeth I lov- Annabeth kissed Clarisse.

"I love you too. And I’ve been waiting a long time for you to tell me.” Annabeth smirked.

“Honestly that sentence makes me love you more.”

“Don’t get mushy gushy on me La Rue.”

----

Annabeth hates to admit it, but there’s a part of Clarisse that – well, it calls to her.

Actually, she’s never admitted that. Not out loud, at least.

Athena is the goddess of strategic warfare. The art of thinking things through, of planning and calculating and outfoxing the enemy. But every general knows that things change in the heat of the battle. Soldier balk where you needed them to stand firm, other leaders turn out to be just as good, and then there’s the weather.

That’s where Ares comes in. Heat and passion and mindless, bloody violence. It’s the antithesis of everything Annabeth is supposed to stand for, and yet here she is.

Clarisse bares her teeth in something that might be a grin or a growl, shifting her grip on her spear.

“Having second thoughts, Princess?”

There’s a stinging wound in her thigh that says she should be, blood oozing sullenly from the wound. But Clarisse’s eyes are bright and there’s a slash across her cheek from Annabeth’s knife. Their weapons are about as mismatched for personal combat as they could get, but they’re daughters of war; they can manage it.

“Not on your life.” Annabeth smirks back, brain moving a million miles a minute, taking in her opponent’s faux-casual stance, the loose, lazy way she’s holding the spear now. She knows better than to think the other girl isn’t prepared, and so even though she can hear her own blood rushing in her ears and fell her chest rising and falling hard with anticipation, she stays where she is. Waits.

The effect it has on Clarisse is more than satisfying. The grin falls into a snarl, and the tension coils tighter and tighter in the strong lines of her body. Annabeth jacks her smirk wider and laughs outright as Clarisse’s patience evaporates, and the other girl launches herself at her.

Defending herself against any spear with just a dagger and her brain would be exhilarating enough, but it’s a whole other level when it comes to Clarisse. She might be messy and impulsive, but there’s no denying her skill and strength, how she can change the direction of the massive weapon with just a twitch of her hand. Annabeth dodges, tries to knock the spear aside and overbalance Clarisse, only to find that it’s not there anymore. A quick pivot saves her from Clarisse’s next thrust, and she uses the momentum to duck in under the other girl’s guard, scoring a thin line across her upper arm.

It earns her a punch to the face, and Annabeth reels back, cursing out loud for not seeing it coming. But there’s no time for regret, not with Clarisse following up on her advantage. Blood seeps from her wounds, but Clarisse doesn’t seem to notice, lunging at Annabeth while she’s off balance.

But Annabeth is used to using disadvantages for her own gain, and shifts her weight as Clarisse comes at her. The other girl slamming into her is a bit like having a boulder drop on top of her, but she manages to twist in mid-air anyway; when they hit the ground, Annabeth is on top.

A sharp smack with the hilt of her dagger on Clarisse’s exposed wrist causes her hand to spasm involuntarily; the spear rolls away. Clarisse spits something foul and bucks her whole body, nearly throwing Annabeth off; she just laughs again, and distributes her weight better.

They’re both panting, pushing at the edges of their limits. Annabeth can’t spar with anyone else like this – anyone on her level is too much of a friend to want to go all out. Clarisse’s face is a mask of anger and something else as she struggles underneath her, and that same something else roars fiercely to life in Annabeth’s gut, searing through her and making her breath come even shorter in her throat.

Her eyes only dip down once, briefly, to Clarisse’s mouth. But the other girl notices, and both her cursing and struggling stops as she stares up at Annabeth, wide-eyed.

Annabeth’s grip slackens. She leans—

And the world spins, the air slamming out of her as her back hits the ground. Clarisse doesn’t have to distribute her weight carefully, not when there’s so much more of her than Annabeth. A course bark of laughter slips from her, as she grips Annabeth’s wrist with her knife, and starts forcing it inexorably towards her throat.

Not about to hold herself hostage with her own weapon, Annabeth spits out something that translates roughly to goatfucker, and unclenches her hand. The dagger drops, and Clarisse snatches it up, pressing the flat of her blade to Annabeth’s throat.

“Hubris,” Clarisse smirks. “It’s a bitch.”

Clarisse might be savage and unyielding, but she’s not about to slit Annabeth’s throat on the ground of an empty training field. So Annabeth doesn’t consider it a risk to fist her now-free hands in the other girl’s shirt, dragging her mouth down to hers.

The kiss is just as savage, but not quite as unyielding. Pressed close like this, Annabeth can feel every way in which Clarisse’s body reacts to hers, the faint softening of her body, the release of tension.  It’s impossible to think with the heat surging through her combining with the lack of air, but Annabeth manages it anyway. Waiting, waiting until the dagger slips from Clarisse’s grasp so the other girl can drag a hand roughly through her curls, and that’s when Annabeth moves.

Her whole body snaps to attention, finding purchase in the ground underneath her and heaving. The two girls roll again, Annabeth gasping as Clarisse bites at her lip and a metallic taste ghosts across her tongue. But the knife is in her hand again, at Clarisse’s throat, and even though her weight isn’t well-distributed in the slightest right now, Annabeth doesn’t care.