A Loophole (Percabeth Selection)

43- "Fish Are Friends."

Disclaimer: The characters you recognise are Rick Riordans. The plot of the Selection belongs to Kiera Cass. Any images you see do not belong to me.

Enjoy

"Annabeth!" Percy cried as the knife went through his chest.

I watched forzen to the spot, as blood bubled out of his mouth as Percy fell to the ground. His hand strethech out towards me, blood coating it.

"No! No, no, no, no!" The blood was pounding in my ears as my hands started to shake.

My feet moved towards Percy as I started to cry heavily-

"Annabeth!"

I jumped up from the bed, my hands shaking around me as sweat trickled down my forehead. My eyes focused as my breathing started to even, Percy's face washed over with worry.

"Percy?" I looked around confused. "Wha-how-"

"You're in my room," He rubbed his hand up and down my arms. "You came here a couple of hours ago... remember?"

I blinked, my memory coming back to me. I was having trouble getting to sleep so I decided to sleep with Percy. This was my first nightmare of the night.

I looked back at Percy and noticed that his hair was sticking up in every direction. His hands were cold as they made their way up and down my arms and he was... shirtless.

I recoiled back. "You're shirtless."

His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as he looked down at his bare chest. I stopped my eyes from looking too. "Um, yeah. It's summer, do you expect me to sleep with a shirt when it's really hot?"

I pouted and looked away. "It's distracting."

Percy laughed. "It's distracting? Is my shirtlessness glorious to you?"

I scrunched up my nose. "Not glorious exactly."

His laugh died as he swept a piece of hair behind my ear. "What was it about?"

My lower lip trembled as I tried to keep the tears at bay. "You were stabbed."

"By who?"

"Didn't get that far." I shrugged.

"Where was I stabbed?"

I looked at him curiously. "Is that relevant?"

He nodded. "Of course it is. I want to know if I would have survived!"

I rolled my eyes. "You were stabbed in the heart, Seaweed Brain," I wiped a tear from my cheek. "You wouldn't have survived that."

He squeezed both of my shoulders. "The thing is Annabeth, I wasn't stabbed. I survived. You survived. We both did."

I nodded, closing my eyes briefly before climbing back into bed with Percy. We quickly fell asleep to the feel of each other's chests rising and falling in time.

I snuck out of Percy's room before he could even wake up. It had been a couple of days since the Report, and I was yet to wake up without Percy's face next to mine. Sometimes he would come to my room, other times I would go to his. We talked about our nightmares, then feel asleep together. I loved it. I made me think more about how this could be my future- waking up every morning to his messy black hair and his sleepy yawns, his incoherent grumbling as he claimed he needed more sleep and the smell of him not lathered with soap and deodorant.

My maids waited for me to get back when I wasn't in my bed, and talked with Percy as he struggled to wake up when they found him in my bed. No one seemed to know about it, which I was happy about. I did not not rumours going around that we were sleeping in the same bed, they could, no would, be twisted to sound like we were doing things we most certainly were not.