soulmates ⋮ heroes of olympus au

nineteen.

P e r c y

☼

"You turn it over."

"No, you turn it over!"

"I don't want to look," Percy whined in an almost child-like sort of way, pushing the paper that held his and Annabeth's presentation grade towards her. "Grades are terrifying."

"Do you think I want to look?" Annabeth responded while pushing the paper back towards him. "I despise grades just as much as you do."

"Fine, fine," Percy groaned, finally giving in and flipping over the paper. He did, however, keep it hidden from Annabeth, so when Percy frowned and winced, Annabeth's eyes widened in horror. "Well this isn't good."

"What? What's our grade?" Annabeth demanded as she snatched the paper out of his hands. Percy began to snicker, mentally preparing himself for Annabeth's inevitable anger. "You Seaweed Brain!" She smacked him across the head with the paper, earning a loud laugh out of Percy. "We got a 96! Why'd you make me think we got a bad score?"

"Because I thought it'd be fun," Percy smirked as he looked over Annabeth's shoulder to see what the comments were on our presentation. "Why did Mr. Blofis say he especially enjoyed your argument?"

"Because I'm better than you in every single way possible?"

"Oh, haha, you're hilarious."

Percy suddenly realized how close him and Annabeth were, with their shoulders pressed up against each other and her head practically leaning against his. Feeling his cheeks begin to burn up, Percy's eyes darted toward Annabeth to see if she realized the same thing he did.

Annabeth didn't seem to, as she was still studying the rubric Paul had given us. "I'm pretty sure you've read it over enough by now," Percy told her as he took the paper out of her hands. "This is kind of obsessive."

"Hey!" Annabeth protested. "I was reading that!"

"For probably the fiftieth time," Percy pointed out, holding the sheet well above his head so she couldn't reach it. "You need to chill out."

"Fine," Annabeth muttered in annoyance, crossing ehrarms over his chest. "Keep the rubric."

"You have issues, Wise Girl."

"And you're being exceptionally annoying today, Seaweed Brain."

Rolling his eyes, Percy went to stuff the rubric on his backpack where, if Annabeth hadn't intervened, would've disappeared in the sea of unorganized papers already in his backpack. Instead, Annabeth gasped and exclaimed, "You're crinkling it!" as she grabbed it out of his hand.

"Oh my God..." Percy mumbled, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache – which, as this point, he was about to. "You are completely nuts."

"And you're a Seaweed Brain," Annabeth repeated with a smirk on her face. "Got anything else to say to me?"

Percy shook his head. "Nope. Nothing to say at all."

Well, Percy actually had a lot of things he wanted to say to Annabeth. But out of fear of being laughed at or just outright rejected by Annabeth, Percy kept them quiet.

☼

After school, Percy made his way over to his usual spot by the library with Leo and Nico, who were already messing around by the time he got there. Well, more like Leo was messing with Nico.

"Leo," Nico warned as Percy sat down next to him. "If you poke me one more time I swear I will shove this book so far down your throat it will come out of your ass."