Percy Jackson

Do you ever have a dream so deliriously fucked up that you wonder how your brain can come up with that shit?

After having an almost identical dream for three nights in a row, do you also then realize that maybe it's not a dream that came from the fact that you miss your best friend and and are worried that he hasn't called or written in a month?

Yeah, I was talking to Gabe about it and was reminded very gently that demigod dreams are sometimes not dreams but visions, so...

"Percy?" It was my fourth night of what I now realized wasn't a dream. "Percy, hey! I don't know if you can hear me or sense me or.... Anything at all, I assume you're asleep? Sorry if it's getting repetitive, but I haven't felt any sort of response and I just um..."

There was a loud bang that made Grover jump as I started to notice what it was he was wearing because it was so different from his usual camp shirt and jeans.

"I'm alive, I'm okay, I'm... I'm alive," my best friend reassured me. "I'm sorry that I went AWOL, if wasn't by choice, but I was following a scent off the coast of Florida and then I blacked out and I woke up and had no drachmas, no money, and no writing supplies. I finally was able to create a mental link between us which I can... Explain more of later, but—"

There was more stomping.

"But I found out why a lot of people haven't come back from the search, I'm... Trapped, more or less, and I... I'm biding time, which is why I'm in a wedding dress, but I can't... I can't do this forever, Percy, please..."

"FOOD IS DONE?" A booming voice said not too far away from where Grover sat, making him jump.

"In a few minutes, dearest!" Hearing my best friend try to sound like a girl was maybe the most alarming thing about the situation. "I'll let you know when it's done, as I promised."

The footsteps walked away and my best friend looked like he exhaled about ten years of his lifespan away.

"Not to sound like a damsel in distress, but please come save me," Grover pleaded. "If you... If you can hear me, please let me know somehow."

Trying really hard to become telepathic, I prayed Grover got the message: hi.

It was very simple, but if I can't send more than that, trying more would be useless.

He smiled.

"I miss you, too," and while that isn't what the message said, maybe he could sense my relief from knowing this was him or my sadness from the fact that I haven't been able to talk to him in a month now. "I'm somewhere off the coast of Florida— I don't know where exactly, but the closer you get, the stronger our connection, okay?"

Unsure if he could see me, I nodded my head.

"I'll see you soon, Percy," he promised with a smile that was sad, scared, and hopeful all at the same time. "Please don't make me a child bride."

The fact that I had to go to school after I woke up from that was a load of bullshit.

It was the last day, though, and since Tyson wouldn't be accepted back to the school next year for 8th grade, I wanted to say goodbye in case we never hang out again.

"Hey, sweetie," Mom said as I walked out to try to eat my feelings away in the form of blue pancakes. "Feeling okay? Aren't you excited that schools done after today? You get to go to camp tonight and see your friends!"

I shrugged.

"Did Grover reach out again?" Dad asked me as I nodded in response. He passed me a plate.

"He's in trouble somewhere in Florida," I summarized for my parents. "I'm going to talk to Chiron and Mr. D about it when I get to camp. He says he lost a lot of stuff, so... I don't know where he is exactly, just that he... Is. In trouble. He's in trouble."

"That's the best thing you can do for him right now," Mom tried to reassure me, but there was already a plan in motion that I didn't have the heart to share with her. "Chiron and Mr. D will make sure Grover makes it back alive— after all, they can't just let you guys die, right?"

But she didn't have to know about that yet. About the plan Luke and I have made for this summer, or the falseness of her statement.

I faked a smile.

"Yeah." I agreed, even though I saw Gabe's expression falter when Mom insisted that. "right. They can't.'

But they do anyways.

"Do you want a ride to school?" Gabe asked me. "I have an appointment today, I'll be driving by the school anyways."

I shook my head, pointing towards my backpack.

"I want to skateboard while I still can," I reminded my dad. "I feel like I haven't been able to break my new board in this year."

"Oh, yeah! Where did you get that board from? I don't remember seeing it before this fall."

I smiled.

"Just uh... A place in Denver," I answered vaguely. "Grover and Annabeth didn't think I'd actually carry it around for the rest of the quest, but I did."

"Hey, that's a good spoil of war if I've ever seen one." Gabe insisted, slowly moving to mess with my hair. Cautious, if you will. "Have a good day and tell Tyson and also D that I say hi, okay?"

Nodding my head, I promised to send the message along.

My relationship with Gabe this last year has been... Slowly reforming. While we talked a lot after I got home and there wasn't any sort of harsh change there it was...

Like, he's healing now and he's my dad again and that's great.

But it was a couple of months after I got home before I regularly let him initiate physical contact between the two of us because it... It was hard to unlearn.

He didn't hit me frequently, but the few times he did...

We're working through it.

Once Gabe was gone, Mom smiled at me.

"We'll miss you this summer," she reminded me for the millionth time (a fact I'd die before telling her I was glad about). "Thank you for not pushing Gabe away, I... I know it means a lot to him that you still call him Dad. Do you want more food? Are you still hungry?"

"Hm? Oh, uh, maybe just a little." I responded, handing her my plate. "And I mean, it's not like Poseidon ever... Acted like my dad. Just because I know him now doesn't mean Gabe isn't my dad. He should know that like, better than anyone. He's also a demigod."

"Oh, he knows that, sweetheart, but I mean more about... The last few years, before Poseidon." Mom clarified, which I guess made sense. "He was really worried those few hours between me getting home and you stopping in that you were done with him or that you'd run away or..."

She shook her head, giving me my plate back.

"Sometimes he still gets worried, but I think it's more guilt than anything now," Mom went on. "How uh... I know we asked when you were little, but how would you feel about having a younger sibling?"

The question, I think reasonably, stunned me.

"A younger sibling?"

It brought back memories of the excited 7 year old kid that I was, before the school system started to turn against me being only in first grade then. The little ball of joy that Gabe taught how to skateboard and Mom taught how to bake.

It brought back memories of my sixth Christmas— my parents asking what I wanted and me telling them I wanted a little sibling to play with.

To their credit, they tried. Mom got pregnant not long after that.

But hearing Mom and Gabe's cries after she lost the baby...

I didn't understand it at the time, but I understood it when they came home without my little brother.

If the question were do I want a younger sibling, the answer would be easy: of course I do. I always have, and hopefully if I do get one, when I die it won't be... As hard for them.

Is that a bad thing to think about? How they'll react to my death?

It's sure to happen before theirs— regardless of if I'm the hero of the prophecy or not.

But the question wasn't if I wanted one, it was how I felt about the possibility of one.

"I mean, are you..." My first thought fell out of my mouth. "Can you still like, have a kid?"

And the moment it was out, I knew Mom didn't take it as intended.

"Wh... Of course, sweetheart, I'm not that old." She promised me. "Trust me, I'll have a lot of hot flashes when I am, but that's not for a long time."

"Hm? Oh, no, I didn't mean like... I don't know, I don't understand how pregnancy works besides like, sex, pregnancy, birth, kid. I meant just because you... Since you couldn't last time. I didn't know if there was a reason for that or..."

My voice faltered.

Mom frowned, realizing my point.

"Oh, Percy, no, that wasn't..." Mom took a breath, cupping my face in her hand. "That wasn't because of anything we should control, he just... His lungs and his heart couldn't fully develop."

"I know, I just... Like, having a little brother or sister would be really cool, but I don't want you to go through that again. That was really hard."

"It was hard," she agreed. "But it's been a while now, and with Gabe working more again and being in treatment, we've talked about it a little and just wanted to talk to you about it to make sure you didn't feel left out. You don't want to miss your last day of school, though, so you should get going. I'll see you when you get home, kiddo."

Giving me a kiss on the forehead, Mom sent me to school with a bag of cookies and very little motivation.

The fact that I didn't crash on my way to school was almost as much of a miracle as the fact that I didn't fail any classes this semester. Between the dream, what Mom had asked me, and what Luke was planning this summer, my brain has reached it's capacity of intense topics for the day.

It was Tyson that pulled me out of my head.

"Percy! Percy, you're here!" Tyson exclaimed as I skated towards the front entrance of the school. "Guess what I just heard!"

His voice reminded me of a little kid sometimes, especially when he got excited. Based on his tone right now, I wouldn't have been surprised to hear that he was going to a candy store after school today. Or that his non existent parents were bringing him to Disney World.

"What'd you hear?"

"That we—" he started to bounce up and down as I hopped off my board and walked into the Manhattan Portuguese Immersion Middle School for one final day of hell (that is, until next fall, because I miraculously was also not expelled). "Mr. Nunley says that we get to play dodge ball! In gym!"

"Oh, nice, how—"

"Ei, bicha!"

But even on the last day of school, I couldn't be free from the homophobes and their secret desire for British cigarettes.

I was blissfully ignorant most of my year when the 8th graders would call me that because I thought it meant bitch for the longest time. Until a few weeks ago, actually, when Tyson asked me what that meant and somebody else responded for me and I learned that it was a slur.

The more you know.

"It's the last day of school, Sloan," I reminded the kid, Matt Sloan, as he walked past. "Don't you have better things to do? Like, I don't know, punch a locker or something? Fail a math test maybe?"

He scoffed at me as a few other big kids walked to him, one that I recognized as a friend of his, but the other two...

"Just wait, Jackass," Sloan threatened me. "Me and my new friends will destroy you during dodgeball today— and if you live to see the end of it, we'll do it all next year."

"Next year?"

"Every day."

I blinked.

"So you're being held back?" I pointed out because we are at a middle school. Which is grades 5-8. "What? Spend too much time trying to make yourself feel powerful that you forgot to study?"

He scoffed.

"Have fun with your slimeball friends," I dismissed Tyson and I, walking towards our first class of the day. "I'm going to go pass my classes and graduate on time."

•••

I got expelled.

Or, I'm assuming I got expelled.

After Matt Sloan and his new friends got desperate enough to turn into Lastrygonian Giants during gym class in order to win a game of dodgeball, they turned the dodgeballs into steaming hot balls of metal that I couldn't even touch (but Tyson could) and managed to light the entire gym on fire to win a game they didn't even win because Tyson and I killed them.

So, considering that, and then considering my previous records in schools, I'll probably have to find a new middle school next fall.

If I survive the summer, that is.

After the explosion, I noticed Annabeth outside, which confused me since we haven't spoken in over a month.

"Wh— Wise Girl?" I asked as Tyson and I hauled ass away from the school as I could hear the emergency sirens start to sound. Cops would be here soon. "What are you doing here? We didn't make plans and I forgot, did we?"

"Hm? Oh no, I just had to run into town to get some supplies for the Athena cabin," she explained, holding up her backpack. "saw how close I was to school and figured I'd wait the 20 minutes and we could go back together to save Argus a drive but... What happened? Who..."

Visibly trying to mask how uncomfortable she was, Annabeth motioned to Tyson.

"Is he?"

And you know, I understand that Tyson isn't the model student or a model kid. He's freakishly tall, he doesn't have the best hygeine because he sleeps out of a literal refrigerator box in an alley, and he has some type of learning disability so he doesn't get everything all the time.

But he's also a really nice and well-intentioned person. He's very excitable and willing to try new things.

So I tried to not let Annabeth's reaction to Tyson bother me, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't annoy me.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," I started as we ducked into Tyson's alley. "Annabeth, this is Tyson, a friend from school. Tyson, this is my friend Annabeth from camp."

"I am Tyson from this alley, " he agreed, nodding his head. "Annabeth is pretty."

"Thank you..." Annabeths voice lingered as she flashed me an urgent look. "can we talk for a second?"

"In private? I guess."

We walked towards the other end of the alley, and even though she requested he not be a part of this conversation, Annabeth kept glancing back at Tyson.

"If him calling you pretty made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry," I apologized ahead of time. "he's just trying to be nice and he doesn't always know—"

"You befriended a cyclopes?"

"What do you mean I..."

Looking over towards Tyson, I took a second to actually look at him. Most of the year, because of how tall he is (at least 6ft tall) and how long his hair is (being homeless meant no haircuts, and even when Mom cut it for him, he was afraid of going short), I wasn't always looking him in the eyes when I spoke. Often times I'd just look in the general direction of his face because I couldn't easily see it half of the time anyways.

So sue me for being persuaded by the Mist until just now when I focused on Tyson's face and noticed that, rather than two eyes, he only had one big brown eye right in the middle of his head.

"Okay, so maybe he's a cyclopes," I reasoned with the daughter of Athena. "he's still nice, and he helped me kill the giants!"

"Yeah, probably before he was going to kill you," she whisperer lectured me. "He's a monster, Percy."

As if on cue, Tyson sat down in his box as a stray cat walked into the alley and started to run against Tyson's leg.

"Cat!" Tyson exclaimed with a smile. He pet the cat very gently before calling out to us. "Percy! An... Ann-a-beth, there is a cat! Look! It likes me!"

"That's cool!" I responded as Annabeth was visibly unsure about how to respond to him. I shot her a pointed look. "It probably knows how nice you are."

Annabeth sighed.

"We have to get to camp, people are going to freak out if we're not back in time for dinner." The slightly older demigod insisted, crossing her arms. "so stop being an ass, Jackson, and let's go. Argus is waiting."

And as the daughter of Athena started to walk away, I remained where I was.

"Wh— Percy, come on." And as much as I could see she was anxious about the time, I didn't like that she called Tyson a monster and then proceeded to call me an ass immediately after. "We have to go, Seaweed Brain, before one of his friends or the cops find us."

By his friends, Annabeth definitely meant other cyclopes Tyson could know, but she seemed to manifest the cops getting nearer.

"I—oh my gods, let's just go," I said as Tyson caught up with us, of which I was glad for.

"Where we going?" The gentle giant asked as the car was also with, staying on his shoulder. "Away from cops? Cops are mean."

"You're not—"

"Yeah, Tyson, we're going far away from the cops," but if Annabeth wanted to be that way with Tyson, she could find a different way back to camp. I could just drive in with my parents, like we originally planned. "We're—"

Mom was supposed to pick me up from school to go straight to camp. I wonder if she's—

"PERCY!" Gabe's voice got all of our attentions as we rounded a corner where my dad was— just walking out of an office building that I think might've been his therapist's office. "WHAT HAPPENED? I JUST—"

Taking advantage of the chaos, a monster came out of the alley closer to Gabe and grabbed his shoulder.

"MR. JACKSON!" Annabeth screamed as we ran for my dad (for slightly different reasons).

I wanted a ride.

Annabeth thought the monster was going to kill him.

"Wh— oh, you motherfucker," Gabe snarled as he pulled his knife out and stabbed the monster behind him, kicking it away as to not get the dust on him when it started to disintegrate.

It was far from Gabe's first monster kill. That was probably his third one this month.

If not week.

He said it's gone up since I went to camp.

"Thank you for the warning, Annabeth," Gabe said, putting the knife back in it's holster. "Do you need a ride to camp? Sally was going to bring Percy after school, but seeing the situation..."

Looking at Tyson standing behind us, Gabe also seemed to register what I learned today for the first time as well:

"You only have one... Are you going to camp as well, Tyson?"

"No." Annabeth said.

"Yes." I said.

Gabe looked between the two of us and took a breath.

"Get in the car."

As to avoid too many fights, I sat in the back with Tyson as Annabeth took shotgun and tried to give directions to camp.

I say try because Annabeth can't drive so she doesn't know the actual street names, which is fair. I also can't give directions to camp.

"It's alright, Annabeth, I know how to get to camp," Gabe reassured the daughter of Athena. "I've driven and have been driven to camp many times in my life."

"You... But Percy's only been to camp one summer." She pointed out. "And mortals can't get into camp, so why would you... Go?"

"To see my dad, of course," my dad answered her question, merging onto the highway. "Percy must've not told you— he may not have realized it the last time he saw you, but I'm also a demigod. Mr. D is my dad. Percy met him when he was young once, but it was very brief."

"Oh," Annabeth responded, and then looked back at me.

She looked dumbfounded.

"And you still didn't believe that the gods were real?"

"How was I supposed to know that the D in Grandpa D stood for Dionysus when I was never told that?" I spit back at her. "I didn't know my dad was a demigod until Mr. D told me that he was his kid last summer, which explained why he reminded me of him. That was like, well after the quest."

"That was... That's why Mr. D likes you? You're his grandkid?"

"You say that like you're not basically his and Chiron's kid," I retorted. "How long have you been at camp? Did you stay home all year? If you left because of something your parents did, I'm still down to punch them in the face for you."

"Percy!" Gabe chided.

"What? You'd punch a transphobe if you had an excuse and wouldn't go to jail, too."

He couldn't argue with me about that.

Promising me that I didn't have to punch anyone in her family, Annabeth told me that she only got to camp at the start of the week like most of the other summer campers. She came out to her family after about a week.

"A week?" I asked. "I thought you were going to do it once you met them at the hill."

She shrugged.

"It ended up being harder said than done," Annabeth insisted, which I could understand. I'm still not out to... Anyone that isn't Luke and Travis, so. I was supposed to do that this year. "I was going to, and then getting called Andrew again just... Hit me right in the chest and I couldn't talk myself into doing it until a week later. They were okay with it, though. I think my step-mom likes me better as her step-daughter than as her step-son, which is fucked up, but.... Yeah."

"Yeah?" I responded. "That cool that were nice about it."

I looked at my dad.

"If... So I know Mom asked me about it this morning, so it's relevant," I promised. "If you and Mom have a kid, will they also have to go to camp?"

"If we..."

Gabe went quiet, thinking to himself.

"You know? I don't know." My dad answered. "I haven't asked any of my friends from camp if their kids are at camp. Eddy doesn't have kids so I haven't... Thought about it."

With that, we cruised towards camo and away from the police cars and ambulances gathering around the middle school I doubted I'd be able to return to in the fall for 8th grade.

If I survived long enough to start 8th grade, that is.

I'm not sure I'll be able to save Grover if I don't know where he is.

Not that I won't try, but... Florida is a big state. That's a lot of space to cover with no license and basically no money.

I'll see you again.

Yeah, I thought. In the Underworld.