A/N: Oh my gods this is exciting, isn't it? My first Percy Jackson fic. I promised you it would happen, and wonders will never cease. So here it is folks: a little drably thing about Percabeth that sort of turned into a character study of Annabeth and an advert for hyphens.

Disclaimer: Do I look like a man? Well, technically, I suppose I could be either because you can't see me, but I can assure you that I am not. Basically, I don't own Percy Jackson. Le sigh. Title from I'm Not Calling You A Liar by Florence + the Machine.

could it be i'm suffering

because i'll never give in?

won't say that i'm falling in love

- corinne bailey rae, trouble sleeping

love [luhv], noun: a feeling of profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person

.

Annabeth Chase was not in love.

She outwardly despised everything to do with the subject and made a great show of putting down those insipid girls from the Aphrodite cabin whose days were filled with hearts and husbands and lipsticks and lovers, but inside, buried far down, she longed for a dozen red roses to land on her doormat from a secret admirer. She burned for forbidden romance and a sense of the bittersweet as she kissed the love of her life farewell on a beach at sunset –

Annabeth Chase was a hopeless romantic.

(Where that idea about the beach had come from, she had no clue. It most definitely had no relation to that Seaweed Brain. None whatsoever.)

But however much she tried to deny it, she couldn't get him out of her head – and she was seriously starting to doubt her mental stability.

Those butterflies she got whenever the boy came close to her, close enough so that if he just tilted his head down and hers up they could –

"Are you sure that'll work?"

Attack plans. That was what he was wondering about; capture the flag and a chase through the forest. So, no. They weren't butterflies; she'd obviously just eaten some dodgy tacos at lunch or something and had gotten indigestion.

The tingles that raced through her body if their hands touched for even a moment, just long enough for her to want to reach out and lace their fingers together –

"What would I do without you, Wise Girl?"

Packing. That was what he needed her for, to hand him lone socks that had drifted to the far corners of the room as he filled his suitcase so he could take it home at the end of the summer. So, no. They weren't tingles; she'd obviously just rested her arm in that position for too long and gotten pins and needles.

The blush she was sure was gracing her cheeks whenever he fixed her with his sea green eyes, looking directly at her, down to her soul –

"Uh, Annabeth? You've got something – just – there -"

Embarrassment. That was what he caused. He'd reached over and wiped a smudge of ice-cream off her nose and she'd wrinkled it delicately which had made him laugh (that laugh, oh gods) and she was sure that she was blushing to the roots of her hair.

Still, though, she maintained the fact that she was not in love. There was really no point to it, no reason or rhyme. No logic about love; especially unrequited love. Because unfortunately for her, she would muse, as her siblings lay snoring, he really had no idea, did he?

And because he had no idea of what he was doing to her, and she would not do the same to him, she would quell the faint hope of any sign of his feelings. Those were not glances in her direction. That was not a light squeeze of her shoulder. His eyes were not wandering down to her lips as she talked…

So when Annabeth found herself wishing him a happy birthday on a bench in the camp, it wasn't a bittersweet farewell, and it wasn't quite a sunset, and he hadn't gotten her a dozen red roses (yet) but she figured it was sort of forbidden because they weren't meant to sit at benches other than their own. She was gazing over the horizon and then he was there in front of her, telling her about his time in the River Styx and he seemed to be stumbling over the words and all of a sudden it was quietly, sweetly, perfectly romantic.

In that moment, she admitted it to herself.

Annabeth Chase was in love.

Reviews are someone buying me the Son of Neptune. As in the book; not Percy. Although I'll take him too.