Micah Anderson

I felt straight up honored that he decided he could tell me about that, because it sounds like he doesn't just tell his friends randomly.

It's a big deal. And something about me started to make him anxious. Which, I didn't think into it because he just told me his like biggest mortal secret and that's probably really terrifying.

But when he went to shower, I called Anders to talk about it a little. I didn't tell him what Percy told me, obviously. Just about the anxious thing. The nervousness.

"Dude," Anders remarked. "You're... Are you joking?"

"About what?"

"Do you not see it?"

"See what?"

"Percy likes you," Anders told me, which didn't sound impossible with him being bi and all but... Why? I'm sure he knows people a lot cooler than me. "He's liked you for a long time, dude. That's why I never believed the whole Annabeth thing until he showed us photos of her. He definitely liked you, he just sucked it up because you weren't out."

Anders paused.

"Does he know you're gay? He wasn't around when you came out, dude."

"Yeah!" I assured him. "I thought he was because I said something about it today and apparently he didn't know. But he knows now."

"And that's why he's anxious!" Anders told me, which I guess made sense. "before he probably figured he had no chance so he could suck it up. Now he does and you know Percy, he doesn't know how to flirt. He can accidentally flirt, but not when he tries. He's a nervous wreck when it comes to stuff like that."

"I... Yeah, he is."

"So?" Anders asked me. "Do you still like him?"

"Well... Yeah." I admitted as I was literally laying in Percy's bed.

"So make your move!" Anders told me. "He's over Annabeth, assuming he truly ever had something for her, so make your move! He probably won't like you forever. Or maybe he will, but either way, make your move. I have to go, dinner."

"Wait—"

And he hung up.

So that was an awkward five minutes for me. Percy gets back and he just has his towel. Which, wereq both on the swim team so it shouldn't be a big deal. We've all seen each other without pants on the swim team. Naked, basically. It's never for long, obviously. But we're all dudes and they've never been uncomfortable with me because I'm not the first or only gay kid on the team. The team is cool.

But I like Percy. A lot.

He changed, though, and I just stayed on my phone, not looking. It's not my business.

But I was laying on his shirt.

"Hey, can you toss me my shirt?" Percy asked me and I looked over, not even thinking about the fact that he'd be shirtless and uh, I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

One, which I know from you know, being on the swim team with him, is that he's ripped. He doesn't have huge arms or anything like that. But the whole six pack and he's fit. He looks good.

But he's covered in scars. Which, Percy's always been fond of swim shirts in practice and nobody picks on him for it because when he swims at meets he takes it off right before and puts it on after. It makes him swim even faster at the meets because it's less resistance than he's used to. It's smart. Some other kids do it after seeing his results and it works.

Those scars made me think that he doesn't do it for the speed, though.

"Hm?" I asked before the question and what I was looking at proceeded and I was slightly embarrassed. I don't think he noticed, though, thankfully. "Oh, yeah, sorry."

So I tossed him his shirt and that was it. End of conversation.

He joined me on the bed, though, and I sat up. Percy smelled good. I wonder what body wash he uses.

Then again, he mostly just smells like chlorine or the ocean. There's not much in between.

I understand why now.

It's still... It's still processing in my brain that his dad is a God but it's not like, a big deal.

I feel like that should be a big deal.

But knowing he didn't want to get too into it, I pointed at that horn I've always wanted to ask about. It's just on a stand. On display.

"Where'd you get that from?"

There was no hesitation.

"The Minotaur."

Had water been in my mouth, I would have done a spit take. Because I understand that he has gone on at least one quest and some how dealt with a Titan. I get that.

But where the Minotaur... Where did he come into the story?

"Wait," I said. "Does he just... Does he just like hand them out or...?"

Percy laughed, it was good. It was nice to hear, because he hasn't been doing it so much since he came back from wherever he was when he was gone.

"No, Micah, he doesn't..." Percy laughed once again. "that made my whole weekend, my gods. Um... No. He tried to attack me and so I ran him into a tree and took his horn for a momento and also to stab him because I didn't have a weapon, was 12, and wanted my mom back. He took her and gave her to Hades for ransom, I was pissed. I didn't even have what he wanted, either, and he was holding my mom from me. I was 12."

"...oh."

Percy smiled out of irony.

"Yeah, I found out who my dad was because Zeus accused me to stealing from him and he was arguing with my dad," Percy clarified. "It was just lovely. I almost lost my mind that summer."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I probably would have. How did it take...?"

"I wish I understood, some sort of power." He said, sighing. "but I got what they needed back, even though I didn't steal it, and got my mom back so it's fine. Zeus and Hera just don't like me."

I rolled my eyes.

"You don't know that."

"Zeus has told me that he doesn't like me and he thinks I'm stuck up," Percy contradicted. "As of Hera... It's either that she doesn't like me or just has no respect for me because she's the reason I has no memory for like, 6 months in California. She could've just asked me to go and visit and make peace in California but no, that's too much work. Instead let's just put Percy in California and Jason in New York and hopefully the camps will say it's fine and just deal with it even though the Romans still don't like us for the most part. I don't... It could have been so much easier, but instead I lost like 5 months of my life to a coma I didn't even ask for."

Gently, I put a hand on his shoulder. I was a little concerned but this passive aggression.

"Percy." I said in a sort of questioning tone.

"I have a lot of anger towards a lot of gods, mainly Hera and Zeus."

"I can tell," I assured him. "It's okay."

Percy let out a breath and closed his eyes for a second, trying to calm down.

"Sorry," Percy apologized for the aggression, "I just... Yeah. I'm not used to being able to just talk about it because I try to filter what my parents best because is still... He's great. He just kind of goes with everything. Like 'this is probably normal' is how he is 90% of the time with us, I'd say. Getting back whenever I'm gone is always a whole process because a lot always happens but I don't want them to get too concerned because it was an intense summer or year but I'm fine but if I start saying it all at once, they won't believe that. And I don't blame them, because... It's a lot, right? I still haven't really told them much about Europe because it wasn't... It wasn't good. They knew why I was there, and they don't need to know much more. They know why and that we made it back, everyone was alive."

"You got to go to Europe?" I asked. "I've always wanted to go visit Europe on like, a big trip. What was it for?"

"I had to," the tone was different than what I figured, though. "I've wanted to go on a fun trip to other places, yeah. This wasn't that, though. We had to go because Gaea... Ugh. We stopped in Italy and Annabeth and I didn't really see the transition from Italy to Greece, but we met the others in Greece a few weeks later, so."

"How do you not...?"

Percy looked down, and I felt bad asking immediately. It's November, the end of the trimester. He just got back in August. And when I saw him look down, I knew I should have left it alone.

But curiosity killed the cat.

"We weren't on land," Percy explained to me, his tone going down a little bit. "We fell into Tartarus when we were in Italy."

"Tartarus?"

"Purgatory for Greek and Roman monsters."

No. I didn't like that.

That's not okay. That doesn't warrant a person with Percy's mental stability.

I turned my body to just examine him.

"How are you not out of your fucking mind?" I questioned. "have you been to hell, too?"

"I mean, I don't know," he told me, shrugging. "It wasn't like it was scary. It was paranoia and needing to survive. I knew what was down there already, a bunch of things and people that don't like me. I was more worried about Annabeth than me for the most part because when we ended up down there she had a broken ankle and it wasn't in a cast or anything. She could walk, in pain, we had no food, no water basically. Apparently you can drink lava, but only once. I didn't know that until then. So yeah. My mental stability is probably balanced out with the nightmares I get. They're not as bad as they were a few months ago, but I'm shocked I didn't wake up at all last night, so."

He paused.

"And I've technically been in hell," he said. "I had to walk through the Fields of Punishment once, which is kind of like Christian's hell. Pretty self explanatory. You have to be a really big asshole to get into there. I've been through Asphodel, which almost seems worse because there's literally just tall grass and that's it. It's like, the neutral area. A lot of people go there if they lived normal lives. And then I've seen Elysium, which is like a lot of Heroes. I've glanced at Isles of the Blest, which is the best of the best and yeah. There's like 10 people there. So hell... Eh, it depends on who decides your Punishment."

That's fair, I guess.

"And you just... Do that?"

Percy shrugged.

"One of my... I'd like to call him a friend, but I don't know if he really likes me," he said. "he's the son of Hades. And Hades is like, a decent dad and let's Nico stay with him when he wants to in the Underworld and if he asks Nico to do like a favor just for like, check in or something, I don't really know. But sometimes he needs help and there's a New York entrance to the Underworld so he'll ask me to help sometimes. So yeah, basically."

He stopped for a second and thought.

"I really should go to therapy."

"It's a good idea."

Percy shrugged.

"I'll ask Mom about it," he figured and sighed. "Sorry, I'm talking a lot and it's probably really overwhelming. I remember when they told me and I was confused and overwhelmed because my teacher from school was suddenly half horse and my best friend was a satyr. It was... Yeah. Sorry."

I smiled.

"It's fine, don't worry," I insisted. "I'm just going to go with it and I'll probably forget a lot of it and you'll have to tell me if again 30 times before it sticks, just like you had to with  ancient history this last trimester. I am no child of Athena."

"Oh, Athena doesn't like me anyways, she has beef with my dad." Percy responded, turning to face me and he kind of chuckled. "Annabeth and I tried to be like, Romeo and Juliet because she's Athena's daughter and that failed, so. The rest of her cabin has never liked me and honestly, bullshit. Everyone loved me until I was claimed by my dad, so. And then the Athena cabin hated me. Annabeth was the only one that didn't and well... Communications are basically down so I can't find out if she can even tolerate me. I'll find out this summer."

"That sounds rough."

"No, it's kind of funny," Percy insisted. "they're mostly all just like, uptight because they're smart. All of them except Catie, the youngest one there all year because she didn't get the smart thing from Athena, she got the whole Olive Tree thing. She's cool, just taking care of olive trees. She's like, 10."

"That's honestly the goal." I expressed. "Retire, go out in the middle of nowhere, and just take care of some olive trees."

"Micah."

"What?"

"We haven't even graduated."