Percabeth One-shots (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Apocalyptic Love pt. 7

Word Count: 1400+

ANNABETH CHASE

"How long do you think it will be until we get there?" Percy asks, walking slightly behind me.
I look back at him briefly, you can tell that adrenaline runs through his veins. He gives it away. His eyes flit around, never landing on anything for longer than 5 seconds. His fingers fiddle with the strap of his bag and the gun in his hand. Every now and then he starts humming a song before trailing off.

I roll my eyes when he starts humming a Christmas song.

"About 20 minutes. If there are no walkers of course." I answer.
He nods, still humming jingle bells.
He looks nervous.

I scold myself. Of course he is. He had a crush on a girl and now he's going to see her decomposing body. I feel a sick feeling in my stomach. Crush. I don't like the idea of Percy liking this Rachel chick.

He hasn't said anything more on the topic, like he's already moved on. Hopefully he has. Pondering on the past can get you killed in these times.
"You know, I haven't seen you properly smile before. Only small ones. Or fake ones." Percy says, noting the scowl on my face. Thank goodness he can't read minds.

"Well there's not exactly a lot of things to smile about." I change my walking direction to avoid a herd of walkers.
We enter the forest, the darkness gives it an eerie feeling...
The leaves block the sunlight. The sounds of groaning walkers makes my heart pound quickly.

"You know what Annabeth?"
"What?" I say, humouring him.
"I'm going to give you something to smile about." He looks at me, studying my reaction.
"Oh really?" I ask sarcastically.
"Yeah. You'll see."

We drop the topic and keep walking. Percy starts to walk beside me instead of behind. His fingers brush against mine and I feel like I've been shocked. A tingling feeling shoots up my whole arm and to my chest.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see a small sheepish smile on Percy's face. His cheeks are pink.

We walk for a while longer, occasionally I make small adjustments in our walking direction when I see small landmarks.
Things like spray paint on a tree. An old tire. A ripped up tent. And the most disturbing thing of all, the corpse of a dog.
Percy makes an involuntary noise of disgust when he sees it. His reaction mirrors mine when I first saw it a few weeks ago.
"That's sick." He says, eyeing it.

The dog is impaled on a old tent spike that sticks up dangerously from the ground. It's head lolls. Dried blood cakes around its eyes, nose, mouth and side.
A small ray of sunlight glints off the tip of the spike. Making it look more menacing.

"Come on. It's a left from here." I tear my eyes away from the dog and start to walk away. I stop when I see that Percy isn't following. He stays rooted in place, completely still.
"It has a collar and everything." He says after a few moments.
I look around, anxious to be moving on from this place.
I sigh and walk back over to Percy.
I wrap my fingers around his wrist and pull him gently.

"It's horrible. Believe me, I know what you're thinking. I wanted to get it off the spike as well, but who knows. It might have turned as well. We can't risk trying, and we can't stay here."
Percy nods.
"Right then. Let's continue." He says quietly.
I give him one more glance before continuing on, Percy following behind.

Time skip

I know we're almost there. But I don't want to get there yet. This could change   Percy...for the worse. Seeing Rachel's corpse and what I did to her...