Take Off Those Glasses! (Jason x Percy = Jercy)

Fool

Percy woke up. Not from sleep, but from ignorance. From a dream that kept him believing that breaking up with Annabeth was going to be easy. It wasn't like he particularly thought he was going to her, say, "Hey, Annabeth? Remember, we used to be a couple? I don't think I can do it anymore, because I assume I've perhaps fallen in love with my best friend. Remember that guy? The blond one, with really pretty blue eyes and a small scar over his lip? That one who looks very cute in round-neck T-shirts and trousers? Who can also debut as a model and gets tons of fans? Yeah, that one. I've fallen in love with him. That guy. So, ta-ta, have a great life and everything while I roam the meadows with him, holding his hand tightly with mine!"

Yes, that was definitely not going to possible. Percy prayed to God it was at least somewhere near that. He didn't want to hear Annabeth's side of what she had to say to not have come yesterday. He suddenly felt like she was just another pretty girl Percy had dated until he had found The One. Jason. She was just someone Percy would look past if they ever stumbled across the same neighbourhood, just someone who Percy would think to be some other human living on the same land as him. He could remind himself all this over the years, perhaps even hazing out the details of Annabeth's grey eyes as years went by.

What he forgot was, however, too precious to forget. If only Percy understood that.

But he didn't. He was too numb, too dense, too aloof, too frosty.

Percy suddenly started forgetting the smell of Annabeth's hair after she had come out from a fresh shower. He started forgetting the scarce places her face was freckled. He started forgetting the patterns she'd draw on Percy's hand, calves, knees, palms. He started forgetting the soft hum of her voice when she would design buildings in sketchbooks, precise enough to be flawless. He started forgetting the taste of her minty lip-gloss in his mouth, the taste of water from her bottle. Every single celebration they had made. Over all those years, through fire and ice. He forgot them.

Or at least try.

It was like he was losing control of his memory. Even when he tried to stress, to remember all they had. There was a cloudy mist taking over all of them. They blew off like grains of sand in a desert. Among all that sand, Percy forgot which grain belonged to him and which didn't. Everything was darkening.

Annabeth.

She seemed so out of reach. Not physically. But spiritually. Like she was buried deep in the soil, among all other life that lived in the depths of the earth. She was an insect, a worm, roots of a tree, the faint sunshine that escaped the particles of dirt. She was everything Percy couldn't remember, everything Percy didn't know existed. She was life Percy was blind from.

He had followed death instead. He then lived an afterlife, better than the life on earth he remembered. Death was better, way better than life. Nothing was pretentious. No one was pretentious. No one showed off their car, or their necklace or their watches. No one lied to their partner, no one lied to themselves. Everything was real. Everything was in its place where it belonged, not scattered around like trees in a grassland.

Percy followed love. He followed Jason.

Life, death, he didn't know.

But he knew one thing: happy.

Happy with Jason.

Happy living the truth.

Happy.

That was all he required. One word. One feeling. One 'happy'. It was enough.

Jason was more than enough, more than anything he had asked for. More than what he deserved.

Just enough to allow him to love.

"Hey, Annabeth," Percy spoke into the phone.

"Hi, Percy! Thank God you called. I was about to –"

"Can we meet up?" Percy said, interrupting Annabeth. He didn't like the excitement in Annabeth's voice. In fact, he was perturbed by it. The joy, the enthusiasm in her voice was something Percy didn't share. He loathed the fact that Annabeth was oblivious. Oblivious to everything that Percy was doing – kissing Jason, fucking him, holding his hand, cooking him breakfast, loving him. He wondered. Ignorance is bliss. Indeed. Indeed, it is. God, I hate her, Percy thought. She thinks I'm still hers. She thinks I love her. Fool.

Then Percy hated himself. He shouldn't think like this. She used to be someone Percy adored, fancied, worshiped. Someone Percy lived for. How fast had it changed? To Jason? "How did this realization even come about?" he asked himself. And Percy hated him even more. He was going to break the heart of a girl he remembered so less about. A girl whose touch Percy had felt like his own. Once upon a time. It was like a fairy-tale, when Percy tried to remember it. And Annabeth wasn't the princess Percy had to kiss to save her, she was the witch who had cursed the prince, Percy, into believing that he loved her, until a mere simpleton, a peasant, a villager, Jason, had shown him the real truth.

There was an uncertainty in the breath of Annabeth that Percy could hardly hear through the phone. A reluctance that Percy realised he hadn't known during all the time he had loved her. It was like truth, bitter, demanding, sour, sweet, all at the same time.

When she spoke, there was an edge to her voice, like she was better left alone than in this. "Yeah, sure. When do you wanna meet?"

"At 5? The café across my street?" Percy asked. He wasn't offended due to the lack of general concern in Annabeth's voice that she usually showed when Percy asked a question like that. In fact, he didn't even recognise the unexpected curtness in her voice. And even if he did get it, he was glad it was there.

Maybe Annabeth did have a rough idea about Percy and Jason. Maybe it was visible by the way the boys would sometimes talk or look at each other in front of her that she had noticed. Percy only thanked God, since it would be much easier to confront her when she already knew half of the truth. She wouldn't start crying, nor lashing out on Percy, or shooting swear words in the middle of the café. She wouldn't be hurt anymore.

She wouldn't deny it.

At least she wouldn't break apart.

"'K. Meet you there."