Percy Jackson

It didn't take me long to realize something weird after Mr. D set down a glass of regular blue raspberry lemonade for me on the table (which was his bribe for me to get up).

(The bribe worked).

"How did you know that I like blue raspberry lemonade?" I asked Mr. D, noticing that my cup was also blue. "or just... The color blue?"

Sitting down, the question seemed to confuse the god.

"What do you mean how do I know? Because of your dad."

But that made no sense based on who I assumed Mr. D would call my dad.

"How does Poseidon know?"

"P— no, not him," Mr. D amended as I took a sip of the sweet drink. "Gabe, technically your step-father. The one you call dad. Right? You still call him Dad most of the time, don't you?"

"What...." But the answers were only raising more questions. "I mean, yeah, but how... Yeah, he's my dad. How do you know him?"

This question also seemed to confuse the camp director.

"How do I know him?" He asked and I nodded. "I'm Gabe's dad, Percy."

There was a pause.

"Did he never tell you that?"

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Mostly as it pertained to how similar Mr. D and Gabe were, but still. It made some stuff make sense.

Also, how he wasn't all that shocked about my dad being my dad. The god part didn't surprise him just... Which god it was.

"N... No." I told who I guess was my grandpa. "But I don't think he knew about my godly parent, either, so...but can't you guys also not talk to your kids now? Unless you're here while they're here?"

Mr. D seemed to ponder that question.

"I mean, technically, you're right," he conceded. "And as I'm sure you observed, I wasn't visiting Gabe all that frequently after they made that stupid law— either way I'm mostly stuck here, but he wrote to me and if I could sneak it by without Hermes or Zeus noticing, I'd send a reply. Sometimes I'd give it to Peter to give to him. Though I did get to physically see Gabe and your mom for the first time since their wedding— which I wasn't at for long, thanks to Zeus, but I got the blue food story throughout the years."

"But to backtrack a bit, what's going on up in the noggin?" Mr. D returned to the point of the conversation. "Mom and Dad mentioned that you were getting preventative treatment for anxiety and depression for a while but couldn't stay on it long. Do you think it's that, or is something else going on? How you feeling?"

I looked at my glass of lemonade, trying to stay stable enough to talk about my mental state for longer than a minute or two without crumbling again.

"I feel like I... Never want to wake up again, but I do anyways," the way I said it of course made Dionysus take a moment to realize what I meant when I said it. "I'm tired almost all of the time and at first I debated talking to Chiron about it, but nobody what I do, it'll never be good enough for him I'm sure and it didn't seem like he'd offer real help so.... I'm tired."

"That's reasonable after such a big change in life."

"No, it's not..." I tried to elaborate. "I've been tired for years, Mr. D. Sure, it's a little more exhausting right now, but I haven't felt whole since probably before I met Grover. I... I keep waiting for something to happen that's going to get me kicked out or just..."

My voice drifted.

"Do you think Grover will come back?" I asked one of the only adults I've opened up to about anything that's been going on in my brain lately. "when he leaves to look for Pan, do you think he'll come back or...?"

Before Mr. D even had a chance at answering, I kept on rambling.

"Like I know it's his dream and I don't want to stop him because it's his dream and he deserves a chance to try," I kept on as a ball of frustration that was comprised of more sadness than it was anger started to well up in the chest and bubble into my throat. "But I'm so fucking tired of making friends that I only can manage to keep for a year because I get expelled or they move or they weren't actually my friend or they die or...."

I choked on my words.

"He's my only friend, Mr. D, and if he vanished from thin air I..." I took a shaky breath, trying to keep my sentences coherent. "Like Annabeth and Luke are nice but... Grover's one of the only people I actually trust. He's the person who notices when I have a day that's worse than my normal days and he's the one who will offer to stay with me so I don't hurt myself or... I don't know, do something stupid that I would do if I was alone even if I've never physically hurt myself before and I'm... I'm lonely and it feels like I can't make other friends because it feels like the other kids don't want me here. Like when I was claimed by my father it just... Felt like a wall went up between me and everyone else and I don't get why and I don't know if I want to know why or if I just want to suffer through it until Grover goes missing and I kill myself because I lost my best friend and I'm the furthest thing from mentally stable and I can't get any real help for it because everything is so fucking expensive because some millionaire doesn't think that I deserve to feel like a person and maybe they're right, but I just...."

My voice drifted off as I started to realize how many things I just confessed to Mr. D that I never thought I would tell an adult about any time soon.

"When I jumped off the St. Louis Arch," I concluded. "I didn't... I didn't think it was a survivable jump."

"You didn't think it was survivable?" He repeated back to me. "We're you trying to kill yourself? Did you jump out of the Arch hoping that it would end in suicide?"

But it was bold of him to assume that I had an answer to that.

"I don't.... Know? I don't think so?" I tried to explain. "Like, I didn't jump to jump, I jumped in order to escape the Chimera because I had no fighting chance and I knew that, but I also thought that the water was way too far away for me to make it to the River so... No, but I didn't rule it out? I don't know, Mr. D, yes and no, I guess? Does me saying that mean that you have to send me to a place with white rooms and no door handles?"

"Does it... It doesn't have to mean that if you don't want it to," Mr. D reassured me. "But if you think you could benefit from an in patient stay somewhere this summer, I can talk to Apollo and make it happen. Do you want me to do that?"

Slowly, I shook my head.

"Not like... I just got back," I related. "It'd be nice to be here for longer than a day at a time without a big change."

"Alright,"and thankfully, Dionysus didn't push me on it. "Then how about this: in a week I'll check in again and if you need to talk sooner, we can, but we'll plan for a week. Give it time to see if just opening up and talking seemed to help, or if you need something extra. If that's the case, we'll get somebody here that actually knows stuff to give us options that would actually help. If it's something like a long term stay at a facility or starting meds, we'll let Mom and Dad know so that way they won't freak out if they have to sign any sudden paperwork from the hospital that comes in the mail. Sound like a plan?"

Nodding my head, I agreed that I liked that plan.

"Okay, cool," the god confirmed. "then your homework for next week— yes, I'm giving you homework— is to talk to Grover about your worries about him leaving so soon. Maybe not today, he just got the license today, but before next week."

Repeating that to myself, I nodded my head and stood up after finishing my lemonade.

It was a good lemonade.

"Oh, also, Percy," Mr. D said as I was about to leave.

"Hm?"

"If it helps," the god confirmed something for me I'm glad wasn't against the rules. "You can have overnight guests in your cabin— just not any girls. I'm sure Grover would be more than happy to have a sleepover in your cabin, or to have you over for a sleepover. Believe it or not, he also doesn't have many close friends."

Nodding again, I thanked Mr. D for everything and started to head towards the swordfighting arena, where Luke was sitting and shining his sword.

"Hey, there you are!" The son of Hermes called out. "I was wondering if you got lost somehow— everything okay? You look like shit, I won't lie."

"I— yeah," I insisted, unsure how much I should or could tell Luke. "I was just summoned to the Big House and then I like... Had a sort of breakdown or panic attack— I think it leaned more towards a panic attack, and then I had to talk to Mr. D about it and yeah. Sorry, I felt bad just going but..."

I shrugged.

"I was kind of worried that they were going to either expel me from camp for stabbing Ares or like, kill me maybe, I don't know." I explained. "So yeah, um... That didn't happen. Mr. D was very persistent that he wasn't going to hurt me or kick me out of camp. Sorry again, I didn't mean to blow you off, my brain just... Isn't very good at doing what it's supposed to."

"It's alright, it's important to talk about that kind of stuff," Luke reassured me. "Mr. D is usually pretty good to go to if you get past the fake apathy— I talked to him a bit after... Thalia died. Do you wanna take your emotions out on some straw dummies? I can show you some new moves that Ares will never see coming next time."

Smiling, I told him I'd love to do so  because I had a lot of emotions to let out.

And you know what? It was a good training session. I really liked Luke as a teacher and like, as a person. He was nice and he was one of the only people that I felt like I could actually talk to about quest stuff and about my frustrations with my dad and he... He gets it.

Towards the end of session, I was helping clean some of the dummies I had sliced when two kids that I recognized from the Hermes cabin came into the training area, each with a backpack in.

"Hey, Luke, wh—" the one who I think was Travis Stoll said (I can't tell the Stoll brothers apart). "Oh, Percy! Hi!"

Looking over, I just waved.

"Hey."

As Connor (I think) walked over to Luke and started talking about something, Travis approached me and started to help with clean up.

"Did you just get done with training?" Travis asked as he threw a dummy head into the scrap bin.

I nodded my head.

"And you don't train with any other cabins?" He continued, which felt like a weird question. "I know that Mr. D's twins train with like, the Demeter cabin or something. You're not with another cabin?"

Throwing a few dummies in the bin, I shrugged.

"Nobody really... Wants to train with me," I told the son of Hermes that was closer in age to me than Luke. "I'm like a walking bomb to most campers it seems like, so... It's just me. I was with you guys for a few days, but..."

"Yeah, the unclaimed kids are kind of weird once others get claimed," Travis seemed to understand that, at least. "Which I get, because some of them have been here for a long time, but... I don't know. How was the quest, by the way? I'm sure you've been asked that a million times, but I know that Annabeth has been wanting a quest basically since she got here."

"It was fine, I guess? I don't know how quests are supposed to be, but we got it done," I told him, not knowing what to do now since we'd cleaned up all of the dummies. "It was nice that Grover could come with, and Annabeth... She's nice, but she also gets on my nerves a lot. How long have you been here? She's been here since she was like 7."

"Connor and I came when we were in preschool— or, I was in preschool, he was 3," Travis confirmed his identify, nodding his head. "We've been here longer than Luke, but we haven't been on a quest and he's also older so he's counselor. Our mom is a flight attendant so she's not home much, so she sent us here when we were little. She sometimes let's Chiron know when she has a long layover at one of the airports in the area so we can visit, but it's not super often."

"Oh," but I didn't know how to respond to that. "I'm... Sorry?"

The son of Hermes shrugged.

"It's alright, we still get to see her, which is more than some kids." He figured, which seemed to be an optimistic view of the situation. "And she's still cool, unlike Annabeth or Luke's parents."

"Unlike... What's wrong with their parents?"

Travis looked to me in surprise.

"Annabeth hasn't told you about her parents?"

"Travis, the only things I know about Annabeth are that she's a daughter of Athena, she really likes Architecture, and she's trans," I admitted, before remembering one another thing. "oh! And that she has a crush on Luke."

"She's had a crush on him for almost a year now," Travis confirmed for me. "I'll give him credit, Luke is very good at ignoring it, especially with how much everyone teases her."

"I believe it," I felt the need to add more to the conversation when I honestly could have and should have ended it there. "Luke's nice and all, but I... Don't know. I guess he's not really my type?"

Suddenly very interested in what I had to say, Travis raised an eyebrow at me, almost enthusiastically.

"Oh?" The younger son of Hermes asked me. He leaned towards me, arms crossed. "What's your type then, Jackson? Scrawny brunettes?"

All of the blood in my body defied gravity, going to my cheeks as I tried to respond, crossed my arms, and closed my mouth.

"No."

Travis bursted out laughing, a sound so abrupt and joyful that it shocked my system and caused another rush of blood to flow to my cheeks. The corner of my mouth twitched up in a smile at the contagious sound.

"You're an awful liar, Percy Jackson," Travis Stoll told me with a shit-eating grin that made me worry that he'd taken a wallet I don't even own. "Connor and I are gonna go steal some stuff from the camp store, but I'll see you at campfire, right?"

"Y— yeah."

He flashed me one more smile.

"Good. I'll see you then."

The brothers ran off, leaving me with a warm pool seeping into my stomach that I wasn't sure how to handle.

"Percy!" Luke called out as he threw a water bottle that I almost didn't catch. "you look like you're gonna vomit, hydrate. I have to haul ass if I'm going to make it to my afternoon session, you don't want me to call one of the cabin 7 kids, do you? You gonna be fine?"

"Hm?" I responded, his voice slowly pulling me away from the shock of my entire conversation with Travis. "oh, yeah, you're good to go. I'm okay."

"You sure?"

I nodded my head, still conscious of the warm pool in my stomach.

"Alright, if you insist," Luke conceded as he put his sword back into it's holster. "I'm off to make sure the rest of my cabin doesn't kill each other during archery. Well, except for the Stolls, apparently. Go do something nice for yourself, kid. I'll see you tonight."

"See you tonight." I returned as the eldest son of Hermes left me to my devices.

A few moments after he left, the puddle started to dissipate as I came to a slow, but sudden realization.

Did I make a new friend?