Can Be Both (A Percabeth AU)

Chapter 16

"Is it weird?" Percy asks. Annabeth has to go home soon and he's pretending like he really needs help on his math homework. To be fair, he could use a little guidance, but holding her hand is much more pleasant than holding a mechanical pencil. "To kiss someone besides Luke, I mean. Or just doing relationship things in general with someone else?"

Annabeth mulls over that, fingers tracing over his math textbook they didn't even get around to opening. "Maybe a little," she decides, relocating her tracing from the textbook to his open palm. He grips onto her hand to stop the fidgeting. "But it's kind of a nice weird."

"Tell me more?" Percy asks politely, wondering how she would react if he bit her shirt sleeve. He follows through.

She pushes his head away with a bewildered look but pats his hair after. "Don't bite my clothes," she says patiently, like she's training a new animal. Percy would regret it if she didn't appear so pleased by his weird quirks. He gives her a winning smile. "No, but really, it's not too strange. Sometimes I'll be holding your hand, though, and I'll think 'oh, that's weird, Luke's hands were always much paler than mine' or something like that. You kiss different, too, but I feel like everyone does?"

"And how do I kiss?"

Annabeth pauses and blushes a light pink. "Well, uh... I don't think. I can say. It." Percy laughs at her embarrassment, so she shoves at his shoulder. "Shut up! It's just hard to describe how someone kisses. It just feels different."

Percy's only kissed two other girls besides Annabeth, and both had been very brief occurrences. He doesn't have much experience to compare Annabeth to, and even if he did, the rest surely wouldn't measure up. "How does it feel?"

"Like I'm flying, Jack," Annabeth says flatly, not putting much effort into her impression of Rose from Titanic.

Percy rolls his eyes, but she's stupidly endearing. "Well, kissing you makes me feel very happy." She glances away from him, trying not to smile. "Also kind of dizzy sometimes."

She laughs, shaking her head. "That's because you're dumb and forget to breathe," Annabeth informs him, smacking a kiss to his cheek. "Now, come on. Math."

Percy groans and complains, but Annabeth ends up staying around for a few more hours. He even manages to sneak in a few minutes of kissing. It's a good night.