PERCY'S JOURNEY TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD | PERCY JACKSON X READER

Chapter Twenty Eight

WARNING; Mentioned mature themes, a lot of kissing, and some adult stuff. But no smut or anything like that. This is still PG-13. No need to freak out. 

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Regardless of all the unanswered questions looming over Percy as the school year draws closer and closer to a finish, there's three things that keep him sane; the first being his mother, the second being his friends, and the third being Y/N—who helps him apply for college and shows him dozens of scholarship and grant opportunities he wasn't even aware of.

Apparently, he gets a grant for being of Greek descent, one for being dyslexic and another for being the child of a single parent. Y/N's a miracle worker, and Percy doesn't have a single clue how to repay her for how much she's helped, but he starts out with a pretty enthusiastic kiss. He thinks it tells her what he doesn't have the guts to voice. The way she reaches up to cradle his jaw gives him the feeling that she reads him, loud and clear.

"Glad that I have you," Percy'll say with his forehead pressed to hers, after he's been robbed of his breath and brain-to-mouth filter. He can't even think of a time when kissing someone was this much fun—though, to be fair, he's kissed exactly four girls and didn't fall for them quite as hard as he did for Y/N. He opens his eyes and shifts back, lifting up a hand to touch his thumb to her cheekbone. If he doesn't already love her, he's well on his way.

"I'm not so glad that you still speak in sentence fragments," Y/N mutters, sounding much less put-off than she means to, probably. Any smidgen of annoyance that might have been in her voice is cancelled out when she surges forward to kiss him again, hand curling around his bicep. She stays close when she says "I'm glad that I have you, too."

Percy files that away, keeping it in that small part of his mind that's actually organized. It feels like one of those moments that'll matter; one of those things he'll look back on years from now and say 'that, that was good'—a moment that'll sit nicely right beside late night talks with Luke and every I'm proud of you from his mom.

There's a lot of things he hasn't worked out, and there's so much to anticipate and stress over in the months to come, but Y/N helps quiet his mind in a way that Percy's never known as a possibility. She kisses him once, then twice, and Percy lets her, returning them both gently.

She buries her face in his shoulder, hugging him tightly, and Percy wraps his arms around her in reciprocation, holding her close while he pauses to think. In the past few months, he's pretty sure that he's thought about his future more than he has in his entire high school career. He's worried, to say the least, worried that Luke might be off to wherever being a rockstar might take him; worried that Y/N'll rush off to whatever school she takes up on their offer; worried that he'll be left behind unintentionally.

Y/N, almost idly, presses her lips against his pulse point. Percy likes to think that maybe she could feel she shift in his mood, but the more probable truth was that Y/N felt like kissing him. She's been known to be rather headstrong and merciless when it came to her decisions, especially regarding the ones pertaining to Percy and his evident weakness for Y/N's lips.

"Hey," he cautions lowly, and he's not even sure that he wants to take heed to his own warnings anymore. "Don't start."

Y/N huffs loudly, but respects his wishes and pulls back, hooking a finger in the collar of his shirt. He leans forward where she leads him, and Y/N gives him a smirk that looks like she believes she's already won. "Percy," she says, like she needs to make it clear that she's addressing him. "Tell me the chances of getting you out of your shirt within the next half hour. Just your shirt, don't look at me like that."

He laughs at her tone, catching her lips in a quick kiss. "It's nothing special, you know."

"Swimmer's build," Y/N reminds him, like he's forgotten.

"Still not that special," Percy mutters. He can't even be bothered to move an inch away from her, noses bumping and lips brushing here and there. He's thinking about the fact that he could love her so, so easily when Y/N's hand dips below his collar, running over the bones there. Percy's mind is made for him. "I'd say a solid eighty per cent," he mentions, after a few moments. "Maybe eight-five."

Y/N gives a content hum, and her laugh ends up falling out against his lips when he kisses her.

And even if Y/N ends up across the country, attending some big time Ivy League school while he manages to maintain the required GPA for a swimming scholarship, this'll still be worth it. He won't ever stop wanting this—the kissing, sure, but all of Y/N, too, all of her uncalled-for correcting of grammar, all of her smart remarks to match all of his witty comments, all of her frighteningly textbook-like answers to Percy's questions. Distance would be but a blip on Percy's radar of things to worry about.

"Stop thinking about things," Y/N mutters, planting a kiss on the apple of his cheek, then his jaw, then his collarbone. Percy's eyes flutter shut.

He wants to say that it's just her and a bit of their future he's thinking about, but then Y/N's hands are hinting at the hem of his shirt. Percy can't say he does much thinking at all, past that.

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Author's Note: I know! I know! This has to be the shortest chapter of all time. I am pretty sure it doesn't even hit 1k words, which is so not what I am about. But nonetheless, here you all go and umm, we are coming to an end folks.