FYI: this is an alternate situation where Percy breaks up with Annabeth when they're 17. It's just a short story and doesn't really fit into my canon storyline, but I wrote from a small idea and wanted to post it. Hope you enjoy, x 

The break up

For the first time in his life, Percy dreaded going to camp this summer. He was scared to see Annabeth again. He hadn't seen her since Spring Break.

So when it was finally time to go back he told himself that he'd done way scarier things than facing his ex. His body didn't agree however, because he hadn't even walked down Half Blood hill when he'd spotted her. He felt paralyzed, his mouth dried out and he just stood there.

Annabeth spotted him soon enough and stopped talking to Piper. Their eyes met one brief second. It felt amazing and sickening at the same time. But before he could even do anything, Annabeth looked away and started talking to Piper again.

He blinked a few times, gathered his courage and walked towards his cabin. This was going to be weird.

And weird it was. It was almost like they'd been divorced and split the camp and their friends in two equal parts. For the first two weeks they never even spoke to each other. They avoided each other completely. Percy apparently had gotten Grover, Tyson and a few of their other friends, the sword fighting arena, the stables and the lake, while Annabeth had gotten Piper, Leo and the rest of camp. Percy was fine with his arrangement. Apparently it worked.

At least for the first two weeks. He'd started to hear rumors about guys wanting to ask Annabeth out, people probably thought it was fun to tell him. He tried to act like he didn't care, but he couldn't help it if a water bottle exploded while thinking about it or the ground softly shaking for a few seconds.

Apparently the rumors were true, because a week later, he saw Annabeth walking together with some Apollo camper that seemed to be new, a little too close for it to be just friendly. He quickly ran off, hopefully before Annabeth could see him and didn't leave his cabin for the rest of the day.

The next day wasn't any better however, he felt like shit. Yes he had been the one to break up with her, but it wasn't because he didn't love her anymore. And yes, she had every right to go out with that guy if she wanted to, but it was just too much to see it right now.

He tried to just go about his day, but the other campers weren't having any of that of course. He couldn't escape the constant gossiping about Annabeth and Erick - the perfect guy for her, or so he'd learned today.

A whole week like that went by. Percy had packed his bag multiple times already. But he didn't want to let this get the better of him. Camp was his home too and if he left now, he wasn't sure if he'd ever return. So he stuck it out and sulked around most of the time.

It was after dinner when he decided to take a walk in the woods with Mrs. O'Leary. He threw a ball away for her while walking. It was nice that he was alone here. No gossip, no Erick, no Annabeth, no Grover or Tyson who tried to cheer him up every minute.

Today had been strange, Annabeht had stopped ignoring him today and shot him angry looks at dinner. He hadn't stopped ignoring her however and acted like he didn't see her.

It had been an hour of his walk of self pity when he heard footsteps around him. He turned around, expecting it to be Grover or something when he saw that it was Annabeth. He froze, just like the first day of the summer, and stared at her blankly.

Annabeth opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Mrs. O'Leary who jumped on Percy with the ball on her mouth. He was forced down to the ground with his dog on top. He wrestled the ball out of mouth and threw it away to get rid of her. He quickly stood up and faced Annabeth. This couldn't have gone any better.

What do you say to someone that you still love, who is dating someone else and has ignored you the past few weeks? Percy could only come up with, "Hey."

"Hey." She greeted in return. It was like a breath of fresh air to hear her voice again. Gods, he missed her so much.

"What brings you here?" He managed to ask.

"We need to talk about us. Or well, mostly you. You're scaring everyone, Percy. Almost every guy is afraid to talk to me, thinking that you'll kill them if they do. I heard that you slaughtered almost all the practicing dummies today at training."

"Well you can do whatever you want, I don't care." He replied, but it didn't sound too convincing.

She huffed and crossed her arms, "I don't know if you're doing it on purpose or not, but stop it."

"Of course I'm not doing it on purpose, I haven't attacked Erick, have I?" He argued back.

"Erick?" She almost shrieked, "He was too afraid to play capture the flag last Friday. He was convinced that you would kill him if you ran across him."

He wanted to argue that he would never do something like that, but he wasn't entirely sure that he wouldn't. Scrap that, he probably would. And he hated himself for that, but he also couldn't deny it. So he kept his mouth shut.

"That's the whole reason I ended stuff with him. It's really annoying what you're doing, Percy."

If he hadn't been so angry at her accusations that he was on purpose ruining her life, he would've been happy about the news.

"I'm not doing it on purpose and I don't know what to do to stop it as I'm not doing anything!" He yelled. Luckily it was late at night already and they were out in the woods, otherwise this could've gone on the very long list of times Annabeth and Percy made a scene fighting.

"I don't know either, but you could say something." She snapped.

"No, but really. What do you want me to say, Annabeth?" Percy yelled, frustrated, he couldn't contain his anger anymore, "You can fuck around with everyone at camp for all I care! Do you want me to stand on the Poseidon table tomorrow morning at breakfast and give my permission to everyone to take you?" As soon as he said it, he regretted it.

"You're a dick, Percy." Annabeth spat before walking away. He squeezed his eyes shut, he was such an asshole. He ran after her and grabbed her shoulder, turning her to face him. She had tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I don't know how to deal with this whole break up."

"You're the one who wanted to break up. Don't put this on me." Annabeth snapped back. "And you can't just talk to me like I sleep around with the whole camp, that's not fair. I'm not some slut."

"You're right, you're right. I'm so sorry, I should've never talked to you that way. I was angry and stupid." He begged her, desperately.

She sighed and nodded in understanding. But she still looked angry and he couldn't blame her. "You broke up with me." She muttered, her grey eyes were stormy as she stared at him.

"I broke up with you to put you out of your misery. You were miserable with me."

"Percy..." Her voice turned softer now and he saw that she was contemplating what to do. He hated how things were between them, so awkward and insecure again. Eventually Annabeth apparently decided that she didn't care and grabbed his hand. Butterflies turned his stomach into a moshpit.

He coughed, getting his attention back to the situation they were in, "But you're right, I shouldn't be angry at you for wanting to date someone else. You're free to date whoever you want and they have no reason to be afraid that I'll kill them or something. And I shouldn't have said that you just want ot fuck around, you're not like that." He smiled awkwardly.

She returned his smile, much more confident than him. He so couldn't handle this. "Thank you, Percy. And I wasn't completely miserable when we were together, you know."

He chuckled, "You were." He looked down to their linked hands, it felt like one of his dreams, "I dreaded coming to camp this summer, but I'm glad I did. It's good seeing you again."

She nodded, still smiling softly, "Care to catch up?"

"Love to. We can go to my cabin, the harpies won't look there." He remembered making the same comment a summer ago, when they hung out together in his cabin almost every night. Yeah, things have definitely changed since then.

Annabeth agreed and let go of his hand and started walking towards his cabin. He felt a little disappointed that she let go of him, but followed her without saying anything.

She immediately plopped down on his bed. Commented something about the mess in his room, frankly it really was a mess in here, and started rambling about her life. Things felt so normal that it pained him, because it probably wouldn't ever go back to how it was before and it was his fault.

He sat down next to her and started rambling back. He told her how he was doing - honestly now - and he was happy that he could tell her that he was doing better. This time he wasn't covering up all the shit that he had been hiding from her months ago, not wanting to eat, nightmares, seeing things that weren't there and all other fears that Tartarus had come with.

"I really missed you, Wise Girl." He confessed randomly, "Now that we're talking I realize exactly how much. You truly are my best friend. You are the most important person in the world to me."

"Then why did you break up with me?" She asked, she sounded vulnerable.

"You know why. I depended on you way too much. I couldn't sleep, eat or drink without you. I was lying to you and everyone else how I was doing, even to myself. I kept pretending like I was doing fine and I obviously was not. I was afraid of dragging you down with me. I know that you struggle with Tartarus too and that's all my fault," He wanted to say the reason why, but started choking on his words. The truth was that Annabeth struggled most with how he'd let himself go down there and how broken he was after.

She sat across from him, cross legged and closed her eyes for a moment, taking it all in. "You didn't have to do this on your own, I could've helped you." She muttered.

"Maybe. But I couldn't risk you." He smiled, even dared grinning at her a little, "Can you forgive me, for breaking up with you and all the shit I've put you through?"

She bit her lip, pondering for a second, "Can you forgive me? I'm the reason we fell. And after that I agreed to the break up."

"Gods, Beth, I don't blame you one bit. And about agreeing to the break up, as you said, you can't force someone to stay with you."

"It was a really stupid and selfless thing to do, you know."

"Maybe." He answered, she groaned annoyed and pushed him softly against his shoulder with one hand, "Stop just saying 'maybe'," She said with a bad Percy-impression, "Can I tell you something serious?"

"After all the funny and unserious stuff, of course." He joked, but did nudge her on to get it out.

"I still love you, Percy. It only became more clear to me when I was with Erick. I only want you."

Woah. Yeah, he didn't expect that to happen. "For real?" Was the only thing he managed to stutter out. Idiot.

But Annabeth wasn't annoyed this time, she only chuckled, "Yes, for real, Seaweed Brain."

Okay that didn't help one bit. He should've acted all cool at this moment, just tell her casually that he also still loves her and will for the rest of his life, but of course he didn't. He just blurted it out, "I- I still love you too. I'll love you for forever and in every other alternate universe we would be in."

There was a silence for a while, they just looked at each other.

Percy had been so sure that Annabeth would move on and hearing that she'd dated someone else had been an affirmation of that. Heck, fighting with her about being too intimidating for other guys at camp to date her not even two hours ago had been a big sign that even he could read with the words, 'she's moving on'. But now she was telling him that he was it for her.

Suddenly she stood up and interrupted his thoughts. "Maybe you should take some time to think about it." Annabeth told him and wanted to walk out, but he grabbed her hand.

"Annabeth Chase, you're the love of my life. If you'll have me, I'll be yours forever."

Now she was the one to look shocked.

"Really?"

He fought the urge down to answer with 'maybe' again, just to annoy her, and nodded instead.

"You can't break up with me again, because you're afraid to hurt me. I want all in, for the good and the bad. I want you to be honest with me."

He squeezed her hand and stood up as well. Now he was looking down at her, he tilted his head down so that their lips were almost touching. He still held her hand and wrapped his free arm around her waist. "All in it is." He muttered against his lips and kissed her. 

A/N

So it's a bit stupid and rushed, but I want to finish something and I don't find it interesting enough to write it out anymore. Tbh, I don't think that they would ever break up, but it was a fun writing this. Hope at least someone enjoys this, hope anybody even reads this after not posting a year and a half. But I'm busy writing multiple stories and some good stuff is coming. I hope you enjoyed reading and you'd make my day by a comment.

Lots of love