Weren’t you such a studyholic? Percy remembers it vividly, how you used to plan your entire week down to the hour, how you’d forget meals but never a deadline, how even your breaks were scheduled with military precision. You treated your academic life like a battlefield, and you were always ready to win. So when you said you were switching majors to art, he hadn’t been worried. Not at first. He thought maybe, just maybe, it would loosen you up a little. Maybe you’d stop pushing yourself so hard.

He hadn’t realized it meant you’d fall in love with something else.

He’s been sitting in your studio for what feels like a century, watching, waiting, suffering in near silence as you pour every drop of attention into that canvas. There’s paint in your hair, paint on your fingers, and even a smear of it on the corner of your mouth, like it kissed you before he got the chance. And you don’t even notice. You’re too busy chasing some vision, your hands moving like they’ve forgotten how to hold him.

Percy has refreshed the same social app ten times, eaten maybe three bites of the lunch he ordered for both of you, and even cracked open his laptop in some weak attempt at studying, but none of it matters. None of it fills the Percy-shaped void growing with every second you ignore him.

He’s starving.

Not for food. For you.

With a sigh that borders on theatrical, he finally moves. Not because he wants to disturb you but because he’s losing his mind. He crosses the room with the solemnity of a man approaching his doom and wraps his arms around your waist from behind, pulling you flush against him like he’s trying to remind your body of where it belongs.

His head rests on your shoulder, lips brushing just beneath your ear as he breathes out your name like it hurts to say it. “You always look peaceful when you’re working,” he murmurs, barely louder than the breath behind it.

His fingers find yours, careful not to disturb the paint you’ve stained yourself with, tracing idle patterns there like he needs to keep touching you to stay grounded. “I was thinking,” he adds, nudging his forehead against you, “next time you mix colors, you should name one after me.”

He tilts his face closer, pressing a kiss to your cheek where a smear of violet lingers. There’s the faintest smile in his voice, “Something dramatic. Like ‘Desperate Boyfriend Blue.’” A pause. “Or… ‘Forgotten-By-His-Genius-Girlfriend Gray.’”