Everything is fine and nothing hurts! (No, really.) Rating for mild language, just to be safe. Cross-posted from AO3.

i.

"This can't be sanitary," says Annabeth, keeping a careful distance as she edges toward the tiny kitchen in Percy's apartment. She puts her apartment-warming gift—a plate of cookies, rapidly growing cold—on the wobbly kitchen table. "It just can't."

"What? Jason helped me spray it for bugs and everything." Percy flops onto the couch. It's made of some dark purple velvet-suede combination fabric and squeaks every time he moves.

"Yeah, so there's no bugs. What about black mold? And all the other kinds of mold and, like, parasites? And—"

Percy waves a hand. "It's fine. I've had it for two weeks and I haven't died yet. I don't even have herpes or anything. Probably."

"Oh gods, there could be spiders in it. There could be spiders living inside of it," she hisses.

Percy leans forward, suddenly serious. "Yeah, they could be carrying AIDS and shit. There could be a whole nest of them, just waiting to strike. They're waiting for the right time to reveal themselves, then they're gonna swarm over the whole apartment and—"

"Shut up! This isn't funny!"

"Actually, it's hilarious." He laughs, brushing some crumbs off the arm of the sofa. "Come on, just sit on it. It's not going to eat you. Besides, they had to spray the whole place for termites like three weeks ago, so we're fine."

Annabeth rolls her eyes, but sits anyway, careful not to lean against the unidentifiable stain on the left arm. "It's your funeral, not mine," she says. "Rachel says sorry she couldn't come to your not-party—" she waves a hand around the empty apartment— "but her dad had some business thing that had to be done before six, so she's stuck at the office."

"Sucks. She'll miss out."

"On what, sofa herpes?"

"It does not have herpes," says Percy, sounding a little too offended on behalf of a sofa that's literally tearing at the seams from past abuse—much like the rest of the apartment.

Honestly, she's shocked his mother let him go apartment-hunting on his own. The entire place has a distinct air of falling-apart. The single window in the living room is drafty—it'll be freezing once winter hits—and scuffmarks decorate the bottoms of the doors. Old water stains creep across the walls. It's not quite at "indie movie drug den" grunge level, but it's getting there. It's one of the all-around shittiest living spaces Annabeth's seen in her life, and Percy has never looked happier.

"Percy."

"Hmm?"

"Is that a jizz stain on this arm."

"...Well, it's not mine."

She sits on the kitchen counter instead.

ii.

Percy's mom had told her to make herself comfortable, but she can't really. Even though they sped past the awkward in-between friendship phase—one of the few perks of repeated monster-fighting encounters—she's only met his mom once before, when she dropped him off in Manhattan. She's never been to his apartment at all.

So she perches on the edge of the too-squishy sofa, grape juice held tightly in both hands, ignoring the hurried whispers from the kitchen. After a few minutes, Percy comes in with a glass of water. He drops onto the couch next to her, a little too casual and slightly red-faced.

"Your mom is really nice," says Annabeth into the silence. Percy sighs, letting his head fall against the back of the couch.

"She's pretty cool, I guess," he says loudly.

"I love you too, honey," his mom says as she passes through the living room, headed for the stairs. Percy makes a face, but there's no malice behind it.

"That's grape juice, right?" he says, nodding at the cup in her hands. "She didn't try to give you Greta's vitamin elixir, did she?"

"A vitamin what?"

"You don't want to know." He shudders. "Our neighbor keeps giving this stuff to us at, like, every holiday ever. Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Mother's Day. 'Percy's a growing boy, he needs more vitamins,' or something." One of her favorite things about Percy, Annabeth reflects, is the way he's the most embarrassing when he's trying really hard not to be. Maybe it's a twelve-year-old boy thing, or maybe it's just him. "I don't even know all the ingredients."

"At least it's not straight carrot juice," she says. "Once, my grandma tried to convince me and my brothers to drink it every day for six months. It was part of some diet she was trying."

"Did it work?"

"No, but she turned orange."

"Was she trying to turn orange?"

"What kind of person do you think she is?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I mean, she's related to you."

Annabeth shoves his shoulder. He shoves back, harder. It's not enough to push her off the couch, but the cup in her hands tilts a little too far. Dark purple grape juice splatters everywhere.

"Crap!" They both jump up, staring at the rapidly growing stain in horror.

Annabeth's pretty sure Percy's mom is in the bathroom, so if they move fast, the damage won't be too bad. She sets the cup on the coffee table a safe distance away.

"Get paper towels, now," she orders in a whisper. He stares at her, uncomprehending. "The longer we wait, the worse it'll be! Go!"

Percy unfreezes a second later, scrambling around the coffee table. As he goes, he knocks his leg on the side of the table—hard enough to tip the cup over, spilling more juice.

"Percy!"

"Sorry, sorry!" He disappears into the kitchen.

She gets down on her knees, trying to catch the drips with her hands. Percy runs back in, balancing a pile of cleaning supplies and a dishtowel in either hand. He throws both at once. One hits her in the face; the other lands squarely in the juice puddle.

"Hey, that was a good throw," he says.

"No, genius, now you'll stain this too!"

"Crap," he says again, with great feeling. "Uh, okay, we can fix this, we can totally fix this—"

"Just get paper towels!"

"I don't know where they are!" he yells.

"How do you not know that?" she yells back.

"Percy? Is everything okay?" Percy's mom stops in the doorway and stares: Annabeth on the ground with a towel on her head, grape juice dripping over her hands and jeans; Percy in the doorway clutching a plunger, a pasta strainer, and dishwashing soap.

"Yes?" he tries. His mom sighs.

"Sorry," Annabeth whispers. The towel falls off her head.

iii.

They're halfway across Kansas, en route to her great-aunt's house in Wyoming, when it starts snowing in earnest. The road's too dangerous to drive on without proper snow chains ("It's not safe!" "What will we crash into, corn?"). They stop at some run-down seventies motel that's the only civilization in a fifty-mile radius. Neither of them has enough mortal money for a mechanic, but they manage to scrape together enough for a room to wait out the storm.

Annabeth fiddles with the radiator while Percy shivers pathetically, curled into a ball on the lumpy twin bed in two sweaters and a jacket.

"It's a good thing we're already almost-engaged," she says, kicking off her snow boots, "because no rational human being would agree to a man who's defeated by eight inches of snow and a broken heater. What kind of New Yorker are you?"

"Humans aren't meant to be this cold," says Percy. He burrows further into his sweaters. "It's not my fault you're from Antarctica."

"Virginia isn't even the coldest part of the country," she points out. "Also, you're ridiculous. I shouldn't need to remind you that we're not fully human." Somewhere between the car and the motel room, he'd appropriated one of her scarves, a fluffy white thing with the tag still hanging off the end. Stray bits of fluff keep floating to the floor. Annabeth thinks he's never looked more ridiculous in his life (which is saying something, because she's seen him soaked in monster pee and hanging upside-down from a tree by his ankles, on separate occasions). "If you bundle up any more, you won't be able to move your arms."

"Whatever it takes," he says grimly. "Hey, get over here. Share your body heat."

She rolls her eyes, but obliges, pushing her duffel bag out of the way. "So, tomorrow," she says. "If we leave in the morning, we can probably get to Aunt Sharon's before ten, as long as it stops snowing first."

"Ugh, snow," says Percy. "We could be stranded here for days. We might never make it to Wyoming."

"Trapped in Kansas forever." She shudders. "Though I guess it means no Holiday Fruitcake Surprise, so honestly, I might be okay with that."

"True. Or if we freeze to death tonight, we won't have to eat it, either."

"Oh my gods, it is not that cold." She checks her phone: three degrees Fahrenheit. "Oh. Just kidding."

"We're going to die," he decides. "But at least we'll go out together. Annabeth, if now is the only time I have to tell you…" He wriggles upright so he can look her in the eye. "I've loved you almost as long as I can remember. From the moment when we were twelve and you punched me in the stomach for the last copy of Harry Potter Five in Borders and I threw up on the floor—"

"At least you missed the Hogwarts diorama," she says.

"Small mercies." He nods. "Ever since then, I have been head over heels."

"Right."

"Okay, it took a little while. But anyway, even though we only have six hours before we turn into popsicles and die here in this cockroach-infested Kansan shithole: will you, Annabeth Chase, do me the honor of becoming my—"

"I swear, Percy, if you propose to me right now, you're sleeping out in the car, and then you'll have one hour to freeze instead of six."

"Oh, come on," he says, sounding exactly the way he did years ago as she ran away from him toward the Borders cash register. "I was on a roll! I even included the puking this time."

"Very meaningful," she agrees. "But also, we're stranded in a blizzard. This is classic horror-movie setup. If you propose now, an axe murderer is going to kick down the door and kill us before we can even freeze in not-wedded bliss."

"Good point." He tips backwards onto the bed, sending up a little puff of dust. "Would you say yes if I asked again tomorrow?"

"You could certainly try." She reaches over to ruffle his hair. "Hey, it's only supposed to snow for a few more hours. If we sleep now, we can get an early start tomorrow. Get excited."

He grumbles about morning people the entire time she spends putting on an extra pair of socks, until they manage to semi-comfortably arrange themselves on the tiny bed. Her head is pillowed on his arm, legs and sock-clad feet tangled together under the blankets.

"At least we'll freeze together," she reminds him. He rolls his eyes.

(The next morning, she's woken at the crack of dawn by Percy complaining in her ear about how he can't feel his arm. She sticks her freezing hands down his shirt in retaliation. He flops on top of her and stays there until she elbows him in the ribs to escape.)