one ﴾ text ﴿ seelie, unlocked

[ex_bronze361]

( she wakes up in the morning and her bedside is icy, uninhabited. she expected to open her eyes and see percy at the window, plagued by nightmares and being thoughtful enough to not wake her -- but when annabeth sits up and looks around, she's met only with the soft sounds of her dog yawning as it warms her feet.

she fears, automatically. but she still waits to make a post on the lockets. she waits, she spams percy's phone, she hushes her dog's cries at missing its dad. it's when she get up out of bed, and sees his shard resting on their bedside table, a note written telling of a goodbye that makes her heart weight down deep into her stomach, that she's confident enough that percy isn't returning to the room. she opens up her locket. )

If you knew him, Percy Jackson has left Drabwurld.
- Annabeth.

( short, sweet, simple. text, because it's easier than getting choked up in communication. )

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[marred]

[ and with a tiny, red fox leading the way, he chases after maia as they take the very short route to percy's room — or annabeth's. neither of them are entirely certain, nor do they really care about the specifics as maia scratches at the door before he nudges her with his foot. shuffling aside, she waits impatiently for him to unlock the door — with a hand hovering over the lock, instead of acting as a mortal does and merely twisting the knob. ]

[ before even waiting for permission to enter, maia skids over the threshold, runs around annabeth's feet, before she takes a great leap up onto the bed and curls up near the pillows. luke ignores her, closing the door behind him, as he approaches annabeth. he tries to not act any different, as though the loss of a boy who had believed too much in luke has just departed from the drabwurld. after feeling the grief of losing annabeth twice before, he doesn't welcome it to embrace him now. in true luke fashion, he swats it away, fighting it, as he, as he had years before, focuses on someone else instead of himself. ]

[ perhaps he should glance around the room, feigning assessing it for their looting, but he merely looks at her. with his expression as soft as his voice, ] Hey.

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[ex_bronze361]

( it's annabeth, still in her pajama shorts and a camp halfblood-hill t-shirt that sits too big on her, looking tired as the day is long, cleaning up some things around the room like she's expecting it to be nice and neat when percy comes home. though the better part of her brain hisses he isn't, and annabeth tries to accept it without a hint of doubt, something in her brain tells her that percy always finds a way to beat the system. that percy will come back soon, because that's who he is, never one to listen to the rules. always one to come home.

athee eyes the duo suspiciously from her spot on the bed ( another person to play tricks on ), before flapping off the bed with her wings fluttering, moving in to smell luke's pant leg. annabeth follows suit, sidestepping athee, wrapping her arms around luke's neck automatically -- maybe a little misplaced, maybe a little awkward, but there. she tries to tell herself it's more for luke than anything, but she's not sure if that lie is convincing anyone. )

Hey hey. ( she says, a little too cheery to be natural, pulling back with her best shot of a smile on her face. ) Have you met Athee before? Percy might have -- ( brought her, but she stops herself. even saying his name hurts. )

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[marred]

[ he looks down toward the dog sniffing the leg of his jeans. the moment he looks up, annabeth's warms are wrapped around his neck. only for the briefest of seconds does he remain frozen, but it's instinctual to wrap his arms around her waist and press his chin against her crown. but it's short-lived, her pulling away to act like nothing is wrong — from the little girl who had been so hellbent on surviving on her own with her little hammer, he can see how she tries to take to her nails and fix the wooden structure of the home she's attempting to build with frantic swings of the hammer he had purposefully taken from her grasp, perhaps knowing, in the future, it would do nothing against the monsters that wished to shred her into pieces. ]

[ he attempts to play along. ] Uh. [ the only dogs he knows are clarisse's — and that's because he had been there when she'd gotten them. perhaps that's why achlys and polemos always come to him — he'd been there when they had basically been born. but he doesn't know athee, and it shows in the manner that he pauses. ] No. [ it feels like the wrong thing to say, even if yes holds the exact same uncomfortable weight on his tongue. ] The dogs I know tend to try and crush me. [ sort of like their "mother". his smile is small, ] Athee's going to have a hell of a lot of competition if she wants in on that.

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[ex_bronze361]

Sometimes brains is better than brawns, right Athee? ( it doesn't have her usual athenian viper bite to it -- she's too tired for it. clarisse could probably come in and preach the good word of ares, and she'd only be able to nod her head and say yeah, probably. she spins on her heels, headed towards the closet, giving a noncommittal wave back at luke. ) Her winged-dog species -- very mischievous. She's playing tricks on us all the time.

( us, there it is again. annabeth cringes where luke can't see, waving a hesitant hello over at maia, before busying herself with emptying their closet. it's not that she's necessarily trying to get rid of any of percy's things, although having them here and looking at them is painful, she's just never rifled through his stuff before. she needs to double check what she's protecting, what she's keeping hidden in her room. percy's shard glimmers on her bedside table.

it's methodical, meticulous. forget sorrow and do the intelligent thing -- it sounds like something athena would say to her. focus, build up the walls percy had supported single-handedly within her, become stronger, independent. do the right thing, be older than you are, braver than you are, smarter than you are. be like your mother.

she doesn't really feel like being a demigod, not right now. she just wants to be a sad, lonely teenager, who misses her boyfriend, who plucks boxes and jackets from their closet like she's trying to latch closely onto memories they hold -- afraid to forget, afraid to lose. they've taken percy, they can't take the memory of him too. )

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[marred]

[ with amusement: ] I could probably learn a thing or two from her. [ given he's tricky and also is of the winged species variety, perhaps athee had been given to the two most boring and serious people within the drabwurld in hopes of sprucing up their lives with some laughter. but the joke doesn't quite sit on his tongue, nor does the comment she takes after him, either. the latter will never really have a place, just as the former will only invite even more grief into the room as he reminds her she's lost him, too. ]

[ luke remains where he is, gaze flittering toward the dog with wings, the fox that buries herself into the sheets, and the girl who refuses to even look at him. perhaps she knows she can only hide from him so long before he unlocks that particular, tricky lock most people struggle with. athena children hardly feel, too logical and intellectual to become emotional, but he's seen and witnessed and heard the manner in which athena is overprotective of at least one of her children. it's all he's ever wanted from his father. ]

You too, actually. [ he keeps his gaze on her back, hands in the pockets of his jeans as he takes a few steps forward to stop. he's seen it before, in his mirror as he had taken to covering that up before he fled caer glaem the first time. avoiding the serious things, fleeing from them — it's a trait she's unfortunately picked up from him. it does more damage than good, running away from the monster you know you can't slay, but it's one you can at least tangle with and put to rest for a few years. his voice is soft, if firm, ] You can't trick me into thinking you're rainbows and sunshine, so how about we just cut the crap.

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[ex_bronze361]

( annabeth tries very hard, sometimes, not to let people know how she's feeling -- it's difficult for a girl who feels so much so often, but it's better than facing her hard emotions dead on. putting sadness and confusion and loss into a small box with satin ribbons tied at the ends, it's easier than admitting i don't know what to do without him. she's been here, before. she's tasted the loss of friends and loved ones -- even percy. she knows what the heavy stone of loneliness feels like when it sits in the back of her throat, but it doesn't make it any easier to lock away where the light of day can't reach. it's easier to keep it from luke, to keep him out, at least in this fashion.

of course, she's always transparent to him, and it's not like she's doing a particularly good job at it right now. when he speaks up, she stops what she's doing -- attempting once, to smile, to continuing faking her okayness with the world and the deceptive ways it gives her what she wants only to snatch it right back out of her hands. it doesn't work, and annabeth feels like a stilted dam about to burst -- she glances up and luke, hands resting in her lap, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. in remorse. )

What do I say? ( she has a thousand different cries sitting on her tongue, but none come to mind that she wants to elaborate on -- not to luke, at least, not to the man who will always own some part of her heart. annabeth bites her lip and glances down, eyes watering before spilling into her hands, but she makes no movement to catch them or stop them. this is what luke wanted, after all. a dam cracked, leaking, under pressure. )

You know we fell into Tartarus together? And what did we tell each other before we fell -- as long as we're together. Like -- as long as we're together, everything's going to be okay. ( she sniffs, loudly, bowing her head far enough to be parallel with the ground. ) But -- we're not together! And it isn't okay, and I don't know what to do. It's not okay, it's not.