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He didn’t notice it until it was too late to stop it. Well, too late to undo it anyway. Percy knew what his reputation was, logically. But he had never been that proud of it. Not past a certain point anyway. Maybe it had been something his mom had raised him with, or Gabe had beaten into him, or years of listening about the prophecy, of being told over and over and over not to take up space, not to demand more than he was worth. Not to get noticed more than he already had.
Well, he had been noticed now. More than, really. The campers at Half-Blood Hill, and the legionnaires at Camp Jupiter had more than noticed him, if this meant anything. If the shining gold mixed with his blood on his razor indicated anything.
He hauled himself out of the bathroom, uncaring that his face was still bleeding from where he had applied the wrong amount of pressure and his hand had slipped, or his scruff was only half gone today. Because what the actual Hades?
“Annabeth?”
She was still sitting at the kitchen table, her coffee long gone cold next to her, face fixed in concentration. Her frown was almost giving Percy a stress headache.
“Annabeth?” he could hear the pitch in his voice. Heard it as high as it had been when he had just found out he was a demigod and could barely hold a sword right.
She blinked looking up at him, “Percy? Are you al-” her mouth slackened as she focused in. As she saw what he had seen. What he had to deal with now. “Percy?”
That confirmed it for him. The gold in his blood wasn’t a blip of his imagination. It wasn’t something he had made up, from all the stress of being a demigod, or… worrying about his next lab report, or how his Creative Writing professor didn’t like how he used semicolons. He’d learn how they work eventually. Maybe he’d have all the time in the world to do so now.
“I-” he pressed his thumb into the cut. It wasn’t very deep, and he wouldn’t have lived this long if he hadn’t had a decent pain tolerance, but he had to fight back a hiss and wince all the same. “I- Annabeth.”
She slammed her book shut with such force that her coffee cup overturned, spilling over the table, over the book, and the rug they had gotten from the flea market to hide how wobbly the legs were.
In a second, like he had just thought about it, it was gone, evaporated away. There was no tug in his gut. That hadn’t been seawater. He could control non-seawater. He had done plenty of it. But the closer the liquid was to his father’s realm, and his abilities, the better. He needed more emotion, more strength to do the other things. Or he had.
“We need to call Chiron,” she said, her mouth hanging even further open. A trickle of saliva fell down the side of her face. He could feel it. He objectively knew it was there.
She was frozen stiff, and he had no idea what to do, so he just kept walking forward until he could feel her body heat, and smell her breath. The worn out hankie in his pocket was taken out, and he was wiping the saliva away from her chin, “You’re drooling.”
Her mouth stuttered closed, and she gave him a sad half-smile, “I thought that was always you.”
Chiron was… a little helpful. Mr D was absent. Percy thought this was a good thing. Annabeth thought that he was being useless, as always.
“I’m gonna,” he sank his teeth into the meat of his hand at the top of his fist. The skin wasn’t just pink when he lifted his mouth from them. It had a faint sheen to it. A familiar sheen. “I need to go for a walk.”
She looked at him. And she was far too understanding for him to take it anymore, “Do you want to be alone?”
He swallowed, trying to speak through the tightening walls of his throat but they wouldn’t do anything for him. He couldn’t say anything. He could not object. He just nodded.
“I’ll come find you, if you’re not back when the sun comes down,” she said, and he hated hearing the tremble in her voice. He might have done anything to make it smooth out again. “Alright?”
He nodded again, completely voiceless.
“You don’t want to leave her,” someone said as he was stepping into the water of the lake in New Rome, watching the sun head west behind the temples.
He turned around, coming face to face with a woman who was too- too something. Too much, to be a human being. Her face had a blue tinge to it. There was pondweed in her hair, flowing over her shoulders, down her back. Instead of white sclera, they were algae green. A winged helmet was held by her side.
This was no mortal woman.
He could feel Riptide in his pocket. He knew it was there. His hand sat on the outside of it, touching its outline.
“How can I help you?”
“I only want to talk, Perseus Jackson.”
He didn’t know how to word it delicately, not when he’d had a day like this, so he didn’t bother, “Who are you? Why do you want to talk to me?”
“I am Juturna,” she said. “I don’t suppose they taught about me in that Greek camp.”
“You’re in the Aeneid,” he said, remembering his gen eds from freshman year. “Your brother died.”
Her cheeks sucked in like she’d bitten into a lemon. He distantly wondered if his apotheosis would be halted if he were blasted into a million pieces. “I am. He did.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It was a long time ago,” she said.
“Still,” he shrugged, stepping further into the water. He was letting it soak through his shoes and socks. The bottoms of his jeans were growing dark. “You were made a goddess,” he continued, trying to remember. “After Z- Jup-” he eyed the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and decided to not draw his attention if possible, and thumbed in that direction instead. “That guy, um.”
“After he raped me,” she said. “Yes. I remember.”
He nodded, looking away, “You didn’t want to be a goddess.”
“No,” she said. “I only ever wanted two things in life. One of those was for my brother to live. I ended up with neither.” Her hands twisted, “I helped his wife. It only hurt my cause further. Fate cannot be defied. Karthargo delenda est. Do you understand?”
Being in the water had healed his cheek already. He touched the place on his face where the mark had been, “I don’t want to.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t either.” Then: “I am sorry too.”
He looked at her in the water. As the water. As the lake and part of the lake and a woman. He saw her. He saw a mirror. It was what water did, didn’t it? It reflected back. “It’s not your fault.”
“Still.”