( her heart won't stop. it's thrumming on overdrive, her breaths jagged and staccato as she suddenly finds her momentum crashed to a halt; in the rush of adrenaline necessary to choose the latter option from the fight-or-flight instincts in her brain, annabeth had failed to do much more than run.
grabbing her clothes from the hook on the wall where she'd left them had been low priority, a fact she was now slowly realizing as her hand squeezed a little tighter on the top of her towel, its knot centered against her breastbone like a sigil on armor. she hadn't grabbed her clothes, which meant she wasn't wearing her clothes — which meant she was currently frozen in the middle of the hallway, dressed in only a towel, while percy peered into the bathroom where her archnemesis was probably enjoying a warm bath at her expense. )
Not a monster. ( the scream might have implied otherwise, she knows. a little chagrined, annabeth parses out an explanation. ) A spider.
( if it was anyone else, she might tack on a threat. don't laugh. but percy knows all too well how annabeth and other children of athena respond to the presence of spiders. he'd been at her side in waterland as they rode through the tunnel of bad decisions and worse fears, after all. )
no subject
grabbing her clothes from the hook on the wall where she'd left them had been low priority, a fact she was now slowly realizing as her hand squeezed a little tighter on the top of her towel, its knot centered against her breastbone like a sigil on armor. she hadn't grabbed her clothes, which meant she wasn't wearing her clothes — which meant she was currently frozen in the middle of the hallway, dressed in only a towel, while percy peered into the bathroom where her archnemesis was probably enjoying a warm bath at her expense. )
Not a monster. ( the scream might have implied otherwise, she knows. a little chagrined, annabeth parses out an explanation. ) A spider.
( if it was anyone else, she might tack on a threat. don't laugh. but percy knows all too well how annabeth and other children of athena respond to the presence of spiders. he'd been at her side in waterland as they rode through the tunnel of bad decisions and worse fears, after all. )