Chapter Text
Do you know the feeling of calm before the storm? That liminal moment between action and inaction, when the world holds its breath in anticipation. The pressure drops, a buzzing runs through your skin, your nose alights with pungent ozone-you are on the verge of something significant, but it hasn’t happened yet. The path before you is filled with possibility, but you don’t know where it leads. All you know is the need to do something-whether that be to run out into the coming rain or to go inside and get your coat. Words and conversations crash haphazardly into your ears like waves on a shore, and slip away to be forgotten just as quickly, consideration replaced by the raw call to action, the mind sharpened to the point of a blade.
Percy Jackson knows that feeling well. He’s known it since the moment he was born-the feeling of anticipation, the call to action which overrides all other concerns. When Gabe berates him for getting kicked out of yet another school, he’ll remember how he felt on a field trip in fourth grade, when the staff asked for a volunteer to pull the lever to feed the sharks. Something, some primal instinct buried deep inside, told him to pull the left lever. It was only as the floor opened up and they plunged into the water he realized he’d pulled the wrong lever. He wouldn’t ever realize that a cyclops had been stalking him throughout the trip, or that the sharks had devoured it when it fell into their tank to protect him-in that moment all he could focus on was the invigorating burst of energy that ran through his blood as he sunk into the water. He’ll crave the freedom he felt in that moment-the joy, the clarity of action, and wish he could dunk Gabe in a shark tank too.
But right now, Percy just wishes he had that clarity again. His leg bounces, his mouth goes dry, anxiety spikes through him. Mr Brunner, his Latin teacher, just asked Percy to respond to Nancy Bobofit’s analysis of The Iliad. Percy barely skimmed it. He tried to read it, but the letters swam off the page. He never contributes to these discussions by choice, yet Mr Brunner keeps calling on him anyway. As she passes by on the way back to her seat, Nancy shoots Percy a nasty, cheeto-freckled grin, excited to see him humiliated again. Finally, Percy speaks.
“Nancy is way off, Mr Brunner”
Mr Brunner smiles, his beard crinkling slightly.
“How so, Mr Jackson?”
Behind him, he hears the sound of a spitball hitting Grover’s chair. Percy clenches his fists, vibrating with anger, and before he even realizes it, he feels the call to action boil up from within him once more. He doesn’t know what to say, but he won’t let Nancy get the last laugh-won’t prove Mr Nicoll’s words about his stupidity right. If he can’t answer, Mr Brunner will know he didn’t read the book, and the bullies will be handed yet more ammunition. Grover will try to defend him again, and Nancy will have another chance to get him into detention. He can’t let that happen. Percy lets his anger guide him, his mouth moving with confidence he doesn’t feel, as if he knows exactly what to say.
“Hector is supposed to be in charge of the Trojan side. He’s Troy’s strongest fighter and it’s Prince. He’s the one the common man looks up to and sees as the symbol of the city, his life is vital to defending it from the Greeks. But he’s a glory hound, consistently putting his glory over the life of his men, his allies, and even his family. He boasts that he and his brothers can hold the city by themselves but he has to be shamed into rescuing his cousin Aeneas and leaves Sarpedon to die after he’s injured fighting to defend Troy at no gain to himself. Troy falls because Hector endangers it to satiate his ego and gets himself killed.”
Mr Brunner looks at him oddly, like he didn’t expect Percy to have an argument prepared. Was that why he called him up? Somehow, that makes Percy angrier-Mr Brunner always pushes him so hard. Mostly, though, he feels good. He doesn’t know where the words came from, but they feel right, somehow.
“Full credit, Mr Jackson”.
Percy goes back to his seat. He shoots Nancy a nasty glare when he hears Grover yelp at another spitball landing in his hair. She doesn’t blow any more for the rest of day, not even in Mrs Dodds class.
The next time Percy feels the call to action, it’s raining.
Thunder rolls through the sky. The light of a farmhouse glows at the end of the hill. His mom screams at him to run, but he’s frozen in terror, trembling in place-and then she’s gone. The monster stands over Grover, ready to take him next. In that instant, fear transforms into wrath, and paralysis gives way to razor sharp clarity. Two possibilities open before him-he can let this thing kill his best friend, or he can kill it first.
The wind roars in his ears as Percy strips off his raincoat and screams insults in challenge, his back against a towering pine tree. The rain soaks into his skin, wet and as cold as a blade slicing into flesh, his body filling with unnatural vigor. Later, when asked how he did it, Percy will say he just got lucky, running on adrenaline and anger, always too modest for his own good. But that isn’t quite the truth.
Percy fights Pasiphaë’s son like an experienced warrior, planning out his every move in mere moments, adjusting on the fly. He jumps off the monster’s head with lightning fast reflexes and clings onto its horns, holding tight even when it tries with all its might to throw him to the ground. The son of Sally Jackson tears the Minotaur’s horn from its skull with strength no twelve year old should have. When he is finally thrown to the ground, he braces himself like a warrior with a dagger, the beast’s own strength driving the tip of the makeshift blade far deeper than Percy ever could himself. As it crumbles into dust, Percy moves to Grover, dragging him into the camp despite how his muscles scream in anguish at the exertion and his mind aches with despair at his mother’s death. The storm intensifies, a great clap of thunder ringing through his ears-it is the last thing he hears as he collapses in exhaustion.
When it’s time to pay Charon’s toll, Percy doesn’t feel the call to action again. Percy is mentally exhausted-he’s been fatigued since the Minotaur, and he has barely had a second to rest since then-just blow after blow. Accused of the theft of the Master Bolt, killing monsters and being hunted, the looming knowledge of battle lines being drawn between the cabins as he constantly hurdles from fight to fight-after all this, is it really such a wonder he feels more like one of the ghosts haunting the DOA lobbying room then the boy who was so excited to go to Montauk a few days ago?
When Percy misreads Charon as Chiron, he tries to intimidate him, leaning across his desk and glaring from behind his glasses so intensely it feels like he’s trying to rend the flesh from his bones, flashing a smile that wouldn’t look out of place on Gabe’s face. Percy doesn’t even have the energy to be angry. He plops the bag of Drachmas they took from Crusty on the desk.
Charon raises an eyebrow. “You really want to get into the Underworld that bad, huh? What kind of family buries a kid with that much money?” he asks, making a grab for the bag. Percy snatches it back, Grover bleating nervously behind him.
“The kind that can pay very well to get us across the Styx faster, Mr Charon” Annabeth chimes in, before Percy can say anything. Charon’s gaze shifts to her.
“You sure you’re dead, sweetie?”
“Does it matter?” Percy says, rubbing a pair of drachma between his fingers.
“Nobody lives long after entering the Underworld anyway, and you get all this money. Why should you have to beg for drachmas from the living anyway? Hades clearly isn’t paying you enough for all your hard work. Maybe we can…bring it up to him, when we get the Master Bolt. Get you a pay raise”.
“Heh”, Charon chuckles. “Fine, I'll bring you across the Styx. Just make sure to mention the pay raise.”
Charon guides them into an elevator, which swiftly transforms into a boat, his suit billowing into a hooded robe. The river is filled with trash-diplomas, toys, tickets, scripts. Bones. The Underworld is supposed to be a dark place, but the Styx provides a pale, ghastly light-enough to see by, through the haze of oily black. Percy clings to Annabeth and Grover's hands, feeling the warmth emanating from their flesh and reminding himself he is not one of the shades. Charon drones on about the pollution of the Styx, but Percy isn’t paying attention.
“I’m Alive. I’m Alive. I’m Alive.” He repeats under his breath, over and over again like a mantra. He’s alive and well, and he’s going to rescue his mom and get this stupid quest over with already.
As the barge drifts further into the Underworld, Percy wishes he was able to believe it.