roadtrip au | oneshot | the playlist
thank you for 2k! here’s the most self indulgent thing i’ve ever written
Annabeth slouches in the passenger side of Percy’s Jeep, tossing her plastic bag and kicking her shoes to the floor. Her GPS tells her they’re just outside the Pennsylvania/Ohio border, which Annabeth could tell anyone from the breeze blowing through the open windows from Lake Erie, encouraging her to kick her feet up on the warm dash. The sun on her toes and the open road beyond the parking lot make up for the smell of gasoline and sound of gruff voices on the other side of the pump.
She rolls the windows up to savor the scent of Percy’s car—which is somehow immaculately clean while distinctly that of a college kid. The seats are a bit sticky for her thighs in this heat, but there isn’t a stain on the upholstery in sight. The back is just as tidy, though it’s obscured by the heaps of supplies Annabeth packed in case of emergency. Or fun. Or extreme stupidity, which, really, the two of them going cross-country in a two-seater is bound to entail. She gives them until they reach the Midwest, tops. Probably sooner.
While Annabeth stares at her phone to figure out the best way to avoid traffic, the driver’s door opens, bringing the sound of a rustling bag and the slight jostle of the suspension when Percy hoists himself into his seat.
if you’re taking the time to read this, you can take the time to click/spread/donate to the following links in support of the black lives matter movement: x x x x
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where r u percabeth fluff fics
bananannabeth.tumblr.com/pjo
Could Be Canon:
Percabeth | things you said when we were the happiest we ever were | Percabeth’s First Date | Annabeth becoming part of the family | Reunion | Percy being flustered by how hot Annabeth is | Annabeth being flustered by how hot Percy is | Percy Braids Annabeth’s Hair | things you didn’t say at all | things you said when you were scared | Sleep Ins | Married | Emergency Accommodation | Percy in a Tux | Annabeth in a Tie | Percy in Glasses | things you said at 1am | things you said when you were drunk | Annabeth admiring Percy’s hair | Olympus Can Wait | Percy with stubble | Annabeth’s 23rd Birthday | Car Crash | Flying Fridge | Killing Spiders | Annabeth’s a bed hog | Percy’s 23rd Birthday | Blanket Burrito | Beach | Stupid | Period | Obtuse | Happy Percabeth HCs |
At High School | AHS Headcanons | Prom Night | Surprise | The one where they have to look after a baby doll | things you said over the kitchen table | Not So Shore (a ‘mortals meet’ fic |
New Athens | Dreaming It | Designing It | Completing Construction | Moving In | Percabeth getting married there | Extras |
AUs:
Skater!Percy | Skateboards and Snapbacks |
Bi!Percabeth | Bi the Way | Bi!Percabeth HCs, Percy-centric |
Disney AUs | A Dream Come True | Percabeth at WDW | Percabeth Sleeping Beauty AU | Percabeth Enchanted AU |
Percababies | Percy and Annabeth have kids | Percy’s first moments as a dad |
Chef!Percy | Delicious |
College!AU | Socks and Spiders |
Percy and Annabeth’s Adventures on Public Transport | Tripped Up | Out of Line |
Bridal Salon AU | Summary |
| Percabeth: “My brothers stole your bike, sorry.” |
Bookshop AU |
Theme Park AU |
Holiday Themes:
Halloween | House of Horrors | Spiders |
Christmas | Gingerbread | Enchanting (Magic AU, written for the PJO Secret Santa 2016)
Because I remember disinformation being spread around the last election and I’m sure Russia will bring it back:
YOU CAN’T VOTE ONLINE.
YOU CAN’T VOTE FROM YOUR PHONE.
IN MANY STATES THERE ARE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR BALLOT.
DO NOT WEAR CAMPAIGN GEAR TO THE POLLS.
DO NOT TRY TO PERSUADE PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE AT THE POLLS.
DO NOT ENGAGE IN ANY KIND OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE AT THE POLLS.
NO ELECTION IS EVER A SURE THING, EVEN IF YOU’RE IN THE BLUEST OR REDDEST OF STATES. IF SOMEONE TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN SIT THIS ONE OUT, THEY ARE EITHER IGNORANT OR MALICIOUS.
VOTE.
fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxury…..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. I’m not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we can’t make our own damn food bc it’s a special expensive thing that’s exclusive to wealthy retirees but it’s stupid as hell and it makes me angry
Wow
The mashup you never thought would work
48 for percabeth! I hope u feel better about the show
Annabeth has known that Percy was going to die from the moment she met him. Four summers. Best case scenario.
Twelve-year-old Annabeth wasn’t particularly concerned about falling in love with the trouble-making son of Poseidon who drooled in his sleep. Freshly sixteen Annabeth sometimes wishes she had opted for the quiet life some children of Athena preferred: strategize, keep your head down, live a comfortable and unremarkable life. She hardly would’ve crossed paths with Percy outside of the occasional class or Capture the Flag. He and Grover could’ve found someone else to be their best friend, or maybe they would’ve bonded as a pair. And Annabeth would have kept her distance from Percy in the name of self-preservation, knowing they would only have four bittersweet summers together at best.
The summer before the Titan War is not the best case scenario. Percy is hardly ever at camp except for quests and Kronos-related meetings. He chooses to spend what they both know is his last of their four measly summers away from Annabeth. Grover is nowhere to be found, Thalia is with the Hunters, Luke is hosting the Titan Lord, and Annabeth feels more like a scared little girl than she has in a long time. At least she isn’t the runaway. That title fell to Percy.
It feels like an insult to Annabeth’s love for Percy to wish they hadn’t met. She is so much better for having loved him. For loving him—present tense. But she says this while he’s still here. His smile may not be directed at her that often, but he still smiles. Sometimes Annabeth can even stomach the jealousy of Rachel being the cause of that smile, because at least someone is giving him joy before this all goes to shit. When it does, maybe Annabeth will understand what it means to wish him away, if only to end the pain of having known and lost a person like Percy Jackson.
The feeling isn’t new. Annabeth’s gut has twisted in previous conversations where someone would bring up high school and college plans. Percy would talk animatedly about getting his license at sixteen, and Annabeth was left with a dry mouth she could not twist into a smile. He would beam at Beckendorf’s plans to attend NYU in the fall and make the older boy promise to swing by Sally’s sometime. Even Beckendorf, who had never heard the full Great Prophecy, could not stop the microexpression of pity.
When Annabeth first heard the prophecy, it was too much for her ten year old mind. There was no face to connect to the doomed fate, no cursed blade to reap the hero’s soul. Sometimes her young brain conjured an image of Thalia, but that was a nightmare of its own. Every night, Annabeth would watch Olympus fall at the hands of someone she hoped never to know.
She still gets those nightmares, only the visuals have improved. Percy is in every single one of them, saving or razing Olympus depending on the night. He never survives. You cannot outrun fate. Annabeth has tried.
Still, she is a daughter of Athena, and Athena always has a plan. When Percy dies, Annabeth will fall to pieces. In a lucky string of events, she might fall alongside him. It’s a war, after all. But she has a sneaking suspicion that she will outlive him. She has a plan for this as well. The shroud they made when he was stranded on Calypso’s island was nice and communal, leagues ahead of the one the Ares cabin shroud that still makes Annabeth’s blood boil. But deep in her soul, Annabeth knows that she alone will make his shroud. Just as she’ll burn it.; just as she’ll care for Sally in his stead; just as she will lay blue roses on his headstone every time she’s in the neighborhood; just as she’ll be there for Grover, for Clarisse, for all of camp when he’s gone. She will do it alone. Annabeth held the sky, once. She will shoulder this as well. How much heavier could losing her best friend be than the weight of the world? In her anticipation, they feel the same.
She will build a monument for him, something to last the ages as he was supposed to, as permanent as the love he has given her. It will overlook the gods on Olympus, a reminder of the boy they failed. The boy who was too good for them all. Regardless of how the war goes, this will always be true.
He was never built to last. Nothing good ever can, and he’s been burning the candle at both ends for a while now. He was meant to burn bright, not long.
Annabeth sits in the dark of the Big House rec room, the only quiet space now that camp is in full war preparation. Well, the only quiet space apart from the beach, but Annabeth knows the smell of salt air and the sound of waves will be her undoing. That is another key feature of her plan: never go to the ocean again.
She curls her knees into her chest, feeling every inch the child that she is. But children are not supposed to have plans for their best friend dying. Children are not supposed to have their first kiss out of fear that said best friend will die before their four summers are up.
The door opens, throwing the room into harsh shadows and blinding light.
“Um.” Annabeth can’t see who’s talking, but she’d know his voice anywhere. “Chiron said there was a war council meeting today.”
She raises a hand to block out the light and give her eyes time to adjust. “Yeah, later.” To Annabeth’s horror, her voice is hoarse. Her throat is clogged with tears.
Percy’s sneakers stop shifting in the carpet. “Are, uh... are you okay?”
He sounds hesitant to ask, like he’s expecting vitriol to spew from Annabeth’s mouth. And, in fairness, sometimes it does. But Annabeth doesn’t have vitriol in her right now. The awareness that she does not have many days left with Percy is painfully acute. To spend them angry feels like a waste.
“No, I’m not.” By now her eyes have adjusted to the light, and she looks at him through bleary eyes.
Percy stills when he sees her face, looking ready to bolt. He points to the door. “Do you want me to...?”
Annabeth sniffles. “I don’t want to be alone.”
What breaks her is how quickly he is by her side. For all their faults, it is the one thing she can count on. As long as she lets him, Percy will come to Annabeth when she’s hurting.
She doesn’t tell him how deeply that statement is carved into her, that she is carved from loneliness the same way he is carved from guilt—the pitfalls of pride and loyalty.
A kid carved from loneliness cannot plan to be held the way that Percy holds Annabeth. Such a selfless love was unfathomable as a little girl; how could she ever have accounted for it? He just.. holds her. He doesn’t try to talk or look at her face. He’s just there, unwaveringly. It kills Annabeth to know he won’t always be. It hurts to be with him, but it will hurt so much more to be without him.
The dam breaks, and Annabeth sobs into Percy’s shoulder. He’s taller than her now, grown only to be cut down young. Still, he is steadfast, grounded, secure in his roots. The way a towering oak has no reason to fear a chainsaw until the cutting has already begun.
“You’re my best friend,” she tells him, because she’s not sure she’s ever said it and it’s something he deserves to hear. “No matter what, you’re my best friend.”
Percy strokes a gentle hand along the back of Annabeth’s head. “And you’re mine,” he assures her. He doesn’t say you’re my best friend too. Just you’re mine. As if the fact doesn’t haunt her. She is his, irrevocably.
A gentle knock at the door interrupts them. Annabeth recognizes Silena’s quiet footfalls and almost withdraws from Percy, but he makes no move to.
Silena’s voice is soft, not smug like Annabeth expects. “War council in fifteen. Figured I’d give you two a heads up.”
Annabeth meets her eyes over Percy’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
The older girl ducks her head in something resembling shame. “It’s the least I can do.” She leaves.
“How much longer?” Percy asks when the door clicks shut. It isn’t an impatient question. In fact, Annabeth doesn’t know exactly what he’s asking.
She gives an honest answer. “However long we have left.” And the sun begins to set on the fourth summer.
All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point. Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this. But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned. Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even basic steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future. Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development. The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital. And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative. So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
Jason Hickel
I need this
A note to all college kids, So Microsoft word has default settings for papers.
If you search MLA, or APA you can get an entire paper template.
You never have to spend hours lining everything up again.
and they were roommates
by @bipercabeth
Finals being around the corner is about the worst thing that could happen to Percy and Annabeth, both as individuals and friends. Swim season intensifies, meaning that nearly every moment Percy isn’t working or doing schoolwork he spends at the gym or the stadium. He leaves earlier and comes home later. Annabeth can’t remember the last time they had a meaningful conversation.
That’s a dramatization, but even their Saturdays are changing. Annabeth is the first one up now, and she doesn’t have the heart to wake him knowing he barely sleeps on weekdays. Schoolwork also encroaches on their safe space, coming as much from Annabeth’s side of things as Percy’s.
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