o6 ♆ video

[kelpful]

[Contary to his usual public presence on the network, Percy is look drained and tired, like he hasn't been sleeping well. He only adds to this impression with the way he drags a hand down his face before clearing his throat and speaking. Those who have seen him post before might recognise that he's in his suite in the Water Sector rather than the one he shares with Annabeth.]

Uh. Hi guys, long time no post, and all. I was just wondering if - has anyone seen Hazel Levesque, or Nico di Angelo? [A brief pause] Or Luke Castellan, I guess. I'm pretty sure they're gone, but - I thought I'd check.

[A sigh] It would be a lot easier if we knew for sure what happened to people when they disappeared, you know?

[encrypted 100% to castmates]
Hey. Can you guys all check in? I just want to make sure that everyone I think is still around is...actually still around, and okay. And if you need help with anything for whatever reason, just let the group know. We should - we need to stick together.

Thanks.

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[sophos]

[She doesn't put up a fight when he shifts them both around, maneuvering herself a little more comfortably.] You're right, we might have to kick you off.

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[kelpful]

[A moment's silence] Can you kick like, any part of me from how you're sitting right now?

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[sophos]

[Well.]

[Now she has to try.]

[She manages to jab her foot against his calf, but she nearly slides away from him in the process.]

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[kelpful]

Ow! [But he's laughing at the way she ends up sliding away; his hands tug her easily back to him. One of them comes up and gently brushes her hair off to one side, before he kisses the bare skin there.

There's a moments silence, before he rests his forehead against her] Hey. I love you.

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[sophos]

[Still no objections, and she's smiling a little when he tugs her back over comfortably.]

[Annabeth takes a moment to reply when he leans in, if only because she's trying to get a good read on where he is. She reaches for his free hand, squeezes it.] I love you, too. [But there's more in it; there's the I'm here, because she knows nothing about this venture onto the network has gone particularly well so far. Among other things.]

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[kelpful]

[He's quiet for a long time, keeping his face where it is for a long moment. Just kind of comforting himself with her presence.]

It's not going to be like this forever.

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[sophos]

[She doesn't move or give any sign of moving. It's odd on his end, keeping still so long, and it's only when he speaks up that she shifts a little. Gently kisses the top of his head.] I know. [And there's a belief in her voice, because she needs to believe it and he needs to hear it.]

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[kelpful]

[There's a soft sound from him when she does that. Not quite a laugh, but almost. He shifts so he's resting his chin on her shoulder instead, no longer hiding from the world]

Well. This part, I'll take forever. I don't...know what to do about the rest.

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[sophos]

[A smile creeps onto her face over what he says first. She'll take it forever, too.]

[She doesn't really have an answer for the rest, because she's still not sure what to do either. Except just keep holding him, so she moves her arms a little to do just that.] That's never stopped us before. We'll - we'll figure it out. I think we've got a pretty good track record.

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[kelpful]

[He’s quiet for a moment, letting his eyes slip shut as he considers her words. When he speaks again, it’s like he’s decided something.] We really do, don’t we? Plenty of impossible things have happened to us before. [A soft sigh blows against her neck] I think I forget that, sometimes.

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[sophos]

We found the Golden Fleece. Made it out of the Labyrinth. [Her arms tighten around him a little.] We even held up the sky. There's a lot of things we're supposed to fail at, but we haven't. We don't. So we'll get through this, too.

[If he forgets, she'll just have to keep reminding him.]

action; this is a legitimately dumb tag sry not sry

[kelpful]

[He feels...not lighter. With Tartarus weighing them down, he doesn't think anything could do that. But more settled, maybe. At ease, for the time being.] We should make that a banner. [Apropos of nothing, at least until he keeps talking] 'We held up the sky'. Or business cards, or something. Need the world saved? Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson are your guys; we held up the sky.

action; LMFAO SKDLHJ

[sophos]

[She can tell right away, when he feels a little more at ease, and she's glad for it. They need to take whatever moments they can get lately.]

[At least until he continues on and there's a moment of silence after he stops talking. Then she just starts laughing, but it's something genuine rather than mocking.] Definitely some business cards, too. Set our own hours. No questing unless it falls within a certain timeframe.

action; u luv me

[kelpful]

[She starts to laugh and he grins as well, but it's more because he's made her happy than because of his dumb joke] I'll talk to Chiron when we get back. We'll be set for life, let's face it.

action; sigh i guess

[sophos]

If anyone's on our side, it's definitely him. Think he'd serve as our secretary?

c8

[kelpful]

[His quiet for a moment, his arm around her tightening a little] I was thinking mayor, actually.

8|

[sophos]

[She opens her mouth to reply, but closes it. Tilts her head to look more closely at him.] Mayor? What do you mean?

[kelpful]

[More silence, his thumb absently sliding back and forth against her skin] When this is over, when this is done, I don't want Camp to just be a camp anymore. Camp Jupiter isn't perfect but - they have adult demigods. And legacies. Whole generations of demigods that've survived. I want that for us too. Not 'here's your training, good luck'. Somewhere that people can move if they want to. No one should have to choose between being with their family and being safe.

[sophos]

[And suddenly, so many more things make sense. She'd been worried over Percy's experiences with Camp Jupiter from the moment she'd found out that's where he'd be. That it would take him and keep him. It hadn't ever quite disappeared. Even after his small confession that night in the stables, about the future with her he was thinking about -]

[A place to be safe, to live safely. A place at home, not on the other side of the country. Annabeth can't deny being a little jealous over that aspect of the Roman camp, something so few Greek demigods ever got the chance at. Something she never got the chance at.]

[On top of everything else, it's a relief. A relief that he doesn't want to go back to New Rome. He wants to take what he saw there to Camp Half-Blood. It's such a Percy thing to take away from it all, to apply in thinking about the future, but for everyone, as much as he's including himself in it. She's surprised at herself for not really picking up on his thought process going there before now.]

[She laughs, chokes a little, pressing her forehead to his. It seems far off, with Tartarus looming, but she's just suddenly ridiculously emotional over the idea of it. A town, at Camp Half-Blood. It had to be possible. Hasn't all she ever really wanted in her life to be some kind of stability? And she definitely wasn't alone in that feeling.] I think Mayor Chiron has a nice ring to it.

[kelpful]

[He holds his breath, waiting for her response. Annabeth has lived at Camp Half-Blood longer than anyone, after all. Even if she wasn't the person whose opinion he valued most, he'd want to know what she thinks about his idea for that reason.

And then she's laughing, but it's that choked kind of sound that means somewhere in that thought process there was something he wasn't privy to, something she feels she needs to be relieved about. He moves into her own movement on automatic, pressing his forehead to hers as she does the same] Yeah? [He sounds a little bewildered] You're okay with the idea?

[sophos]

[She smiles, something a little soft, a little hopeful.] Yeah. I mean, Camp Half-Blood - it's home, for so many people. But it's limited in some ways. [She closes her eyes for a moment, weaving her fingers through his and squeezing his hand. She keeps her forehead against his when she opens them to look at him again.] Why not make it - a bigger home?

[Of course. Of course he'd come back to Camp Half-Blood. How could she even think he wouldn't?]

[kelpful]

[His expression is caught somewhere between being pleased, and being confused.] Right. That's exactly what I was thinking. [He squeezes her hand back.] And I figure that after redesigning Olympus, designing a town should be no problem.

[He doesn't even ask her. There's no one else he would accept as the architect of a home for demigods. Even if it's not...really his place to be making this kind of decision. He feels bad for that, but it's so important to him that he's not going to back down.]

[sophos]

[She can absolutely tell he's confused, but she can't bring herself to explain. Especially after he straight up tells her he wants her to design it. It hadn't really occurred to her, but she's not surprised he's not considering any other option. She's not even opposed.]

[She just doesn't really know what her feelings are doing at the moment, between the notion of a town at all and designing it. How permanent would that be? How strong of an impact on lives would it make? Not just for herself, but demigods with and after her. She feels more allegiance towards them than the gods right now, at any rate.]

[Instead of responding right away, she just kisses him. It's soft and not very long but still full of how much she's just feeling right now.] You have no idea how ridiculously picky the gods have been over blueprints. A town - that's cake.

[kelpful]

[The way she kisses him takes him be surprise, but he doesn't protest at all. The opposite, actually, his lips easing over hers soft and slow. It takes him a couple of seconds for his brain to kick into gear again when she pulls away, taking his breath with her.]

Um. [A beat] Okay, good. Awesome. [Wait] can we have our house on the water? Like-- [He shifts a little, his arm still around her as he gestures with his hands trying to illustrate. It's the kind of thing that would probably only make sense to her] Mostly on the land, but you could just jump over the deck into the sea? Or the lake, I guess, if it didn't work along the beach.

[sophos]

[Our house.]

[Our house.. It's such a dumb thing to get stuck on, because they're already living together in her suite. But it's an entirely different connotation than coming together here because they needed to. Our house because they want to. Nothing about their current situation is normal, and maybe a house in a town of demigods isn't exactly normal either - but it's close. It's close and it's a choice she wants to make and think about because she can. Because it's a possibility. But she's already overwhelmed by everything else before hand that she doesn't really know what to say to that. Not when it's so far off and she's still sorting through a bunch of other emotions.]

[So Annabeth just starts deferring into logic without actually answering.] It would - depend, you know, on the layout of the town, the nature of the housing and the roads, where it falls in connectivity to the Camp itself - inside it, outside it, who else gets to come there -

[She'll just keep rambling nervously until he interrupts tbh.]

[The gesture does make sense, though.]