Impossible Year
32,032 words
amazing art by @hamabee
an ode to my love for annabeth chase
inspired by the song impossible year by panic! at the disco
shout out to @percyyoulittleshit and @falloutside for organising the @pjohoobigbang and inspiring me to write my longest one-off fic to date, and thanks to @spooky-son-of-rome for betaing, and to @percyyoulittleshit and @lililibird for being honorary betas and fab cheerleaders, i love you all
and thanks to @hamabee. hannah, i honestly couldn’t have done this without you. from the very idea of it through to individual scenes and just general support, none of this would have happened without you. your art is absolutely incredible, your talent is endlessly inspiring and i can’t thank you enough for coming on this months-long journey with annabeth and i. i love you.
It starts and ends with this: “Together.”
Annabeth stares at Percy, and Percy stares at Annabeth.
They’re searching for something that they aren’t even sure exists anymore. They’re so unrecognisable now that they’ve started to forget who they were, before.
She feels his fingers twitch in hers, registers that she’s probably holding his hands too tightly but acknowledges that she doesn’t want to let go just yet. She’s sitting in his lap, their hands clasped between them, and both of them are crying.
She knows that he doesn’t want to let go yet, either. Because once they let go, it’s done. They are done.
Annabeth takes a deep breath, one that rattles her very bones, feels her heart beating wildly in her chest, feels her stomach churning and her mouth going dry. She licks her lips.
Percy watches, and she thinks about kissing him. You know, to say goodbye.
Instead, she closes her eyes. She counts to ten, and then she tells herself to be brave. She opens her eyes.
Gods, he looks as sad as she feels.
Which is part of the problem - maybe the whole problem, actually. Together was what had gotten them through Tartarus, what had given them the strength to claw their way out and then to keep on fighting through everything that had come after.
But they’re out, now, back at camp and physically safe and yet all they seem to do is keep dragging each other back down there.