Our Bedroom After the War (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Detentions and Replacements

        To say that he had been in a bad mood for the rest of the day, would've been an understatement.

        He wasn't in a bad mood, he was in an awful mood. That much was obvious. He'd gotten a few snide remarks from the few friends he had at Goode, and had even talked back at some of the teachers. He wasn't exactly angry over what had happened in the morning, it was something else entirely. Watching how easily Annabeth had laughed and talked with that other guy had sparked something in Percy, that he wasn't sure he could put into words. He guessed it was the initial shock, what had disturbed him the most.

        The fact that Annabeth had a life outside of everything, while he still had trouble sleeping for the majority of the night. And maybe that was what had pushed her away too. After all what was he other than the same old, stupid, seaweed brained, good for nothing Percy he'd always been? Maybe she had finally gotten tired of him and was slowly replacing him with a smarter, handsomer, cooler model. Maybe it was time to call it quits, now that they had distanced themselves.

        But that was it, he didn't want to break up with her, not now, even though he was still angry at her for flirting with some guy and hadn't returned any of her calls. He was in the wrong and he knew it, he was being an ass over nothing and he should've just called her back and said he was sorry and bottle everything up like he'd done before. But he hadn't done any of those things, because he was Percy. And because he was Percy, he was currently sitting in an empty classroom with his step-father staring at him from across the room because he had taken out his anger on any living thing that had come within 5 feet from him and had managed to get himself detention.

        He let out a heavy sigh and let his head slump on his shoulders. His dark hair stood up in different directions as he continuously ran his hands through them, a gesture he'd become accustomed to do whenever he was aggravated about something. Paul must've caught on, because he sed aside papers, and with both hands on his desk looked at Percy.

"I haven't seen that much angst in you since I started dating your mother." He said jokingly, but Percy wasn't in the mood for jokes.

        He rolled his eyes, and laid his head over the side of his arm on his desk. He didn't want to talk about Annabeth in an old crappy classroom with his stepdad, he just wanted to not think about anything for a while. The lights, and walls in the classroom were too bright, they made his eyes hurt and they reminded him of the week he'd spent at the hospital.

        There were things he couldn't talk about without becoming a complete and utter mess, things he'd seen that had kept him up for weeks, things that no matter how hard he tried he couldn't explain to anyone. Anyone except Annabeth...His thoughts were a vicious cycle. They always seemed to start and end the same way, with Annabeth. No matter how many detours he tried to take, he was always back to where he started. The silence was broken by Paul again.

"Fighting with Annabeth again?" He asked and Percy groaned.

"We're not fighting, we're... I don't want to talk about it." Paul looked at Percy worriedly.

"Not 'fighting'? I see..." He said leaning back in his chair.

        Percy had been bottling up his feelings about his issue with Annabeth for weeks now, and maybe it was the way Paul had shown his genuine concern that made Percy crack. He threw his hands up in exasperation and before he knew it, the words were just spilling out of his mouth.

"It's just... Ever since we got back things have been so different between us. Like, half of the time she'll just call me to cancel whatever plans we had, and the other half, when she does decide to show up, it's like she's there but she's not. Like I'm trying to communicate with her but the signal is all messed up." He threw his head back, closed his eyes and spoke quietly.