Chapter Text
Percy Jackson got all of ten minutes to relax in Olympus’ mega infirmary before being divinely poofed into his apartment living room. Apollo, Poseidon, and all— Gods really don't have a good concept of what good mortal rest is, he was hoping for at least a thirty minute nap. Nonetheless, he’s choosing to be thankful that he doesn't have to go through the whole however-many-hours long drive it takes to get back home from Camp.
In front of them, his mom and Paul are sitting on the couch. He hears the TV playing behind him, it sounds like some sitcom, but he doesn't get a chance to say hi before he starts coughing. It feels like the travel knocked something out of place and he's completely breathless again. Just like he was in the counselor meeting at Camp.
“Perce?! Shit, do we even have an inhaler here?” Sally rushes towards the bathroom.
Percy wants to tell her it's okay and to not worry, but rather inconveniently he can't breathe let alone tell her that. He flinches as a hand touches his back and he instantly feels relief, it must've been Apollo. His chest still burns, but his mom is standing in front of him so he pushes the feeling away. She feels his forehead and cheeks with the back of her hands as she checks for a fever.
“Are you sick, dear? You feel sorta warm. Let's get you on the couch, what's going on? Paul, can you grab the medicine box from the linen closet? We might have an inhaler, definitely Advil at least,” Sally rapidly asks in succession.
“Actually, I think you should all sit down. Perseus isn't ill in the way you think he is,” Apollo ominously says.
“He prefers Percy,” Paul instinctually says.
It's automatic to the teacher. Now that Percy's finished through grade nine at various middle schools, it means he has to go through the obnoxious process of finding a high school willing to take him— preferably within New York City. It doesn’t seem like a huge ask, but considering how horrible his academic record is it’s far from simple.
Paul teaches at a fancy private school that's supposed to be good with kids with ADHD and stuff, so he's been trying to pull strings to get Percy in. Ironically, Percy doesn't meet the admissions requirements because he doesn't test well from his ADHD. Hence, Paul having a lot of meetings trying to get him into the school and trying to explain that it's Percy, not Perseus.
Percy shoots Paul a shut-up-you-don’t-correct-gods look. It’s somewhere between anger and complete fear. Nonetheless, the 2.5 mortals sit down on the couch while the gods stand in front of them. Percy’s chest is still bothering him and he starts trying to rub it, as if it would loosen how tight it feels. It doesn’t work.
Apollo begins to speak, “Percy was brought to me because he was having an asthma attack, which was exacerbated because he also now has chronic bronchitis, a form of COPD. When I conducted a total body scan, it revealed that he had been susceptible to developing it due to his history. And with his recent exposure to the Labyrinth and the volcano’s explosion, it was enough to push him over the edge. There’s nothing that divine nor mortal medicine can do to cure it.”
Sally and Paul sit there in silence. Just in shock. They can’t believe that Percy, one of the most powerful demigods alive, has a serious incurable illness.
Apollo doesn’t catch on and keeps explaining, “Since Percy’s still in school, you should go see a mortal pulmonologist and tell them that he got severely ill in March, was exposed to a lot of cigarette smoke growing up, and you’re worried about his asthma being much worse since then. That should be enough that they’ll diagnose him after a few tests. Also, there’s some medications,” the god continues monologuing, no end in sight.
Percy stops paying attention, he’ll live it enough that he’ll figure it out. That’s the philosophy he usually takes with things. Sure, it’s probably not the best idea, but he hasn’t gotten caught yet. His mom looks pretty worried and pulls him closer to her, he accepts the embrace and leans to rest his head against her. As the god keeps talking, he gets more and more tired and eventually dozes off.
When he wakes up, Apollo is gone but his dad is still sitting in the chair across from the couch chatting with Paul. His mom seems to be paying attention, but is trying to stay quiet to not wake her son. At some point, it seems like somebody brought her a laptop and she's looking at his asthma doctor's webpage to book an appointment. Percy closes his eyes to go back to sleep, but his breath snags and he starts coughing again. His mom quickly sits him up and hands him a shiny new inhaler as she rubs his back. After a couple minutes, the medication kicks in and he's finally able to get a good breath in.
“We got an appointment next week, think you'll make it?” Sally asks, trying to joke but obviously concerned.
Percy nods instinctually, not wanting to worry his mom too much. Now that he's home and finally has the chance to relax, he starts to realize how awful he feels. It’s a pattern that he’s noticed, even if he spent time at Camp after quests it’s like his body can’t relax until after he’s home. Like it just knows that it can let its guard down.
Look, he's used to feeling shitty after quests. Usually he comes home, tells his mom everything that he deems isn't too much, and proceeds to spend the next week horribly depressed between unrelenting PTSD episodes. He knows it's not exactly a pleasant routine, but he really does like being home. It feels warm, safe, pressure-free.
This time, however, is different. Percy feels his normal amount of awful and more this time. His chest is absolutely killing him. It feels like he's being burned from the inside out. It feels like he's back at Mount St. Helens, the ash flooding his lungs and the smoke replacing all oxygen. He thinks he can smell the sulfur. Suddenly, he feels something cold on his chest and he sees his mom in front of him.
“Percy, honey, you have to slow down your breathing. You're home, it's mom here. You're gonna be okay, you're with me,” Sally says, obviously well-versed in this situation.
Poseidon approaches then and tries to offer a pat on Percy’s back only to be met with a violent flinch away as he covers his face with his arms. The teen rapidly starts muttering pleas for safety, obviously terrified. Obviously without a clue of who’s around him or what’s going on.
“He doesn't do well with touch from most people except Sally, but especially not men, during episodes. It'll pass, just give him some time,” Paul explains to the immortal, “I know. It's hard to watch, but it's all we can do. Sally told me this happens a lot when he first gets back from quests.”
“This is… normal?” Poseidon asks, “What is it? Is this part of his recent condition?”
“Normal for him, not the condition you're thinking of. Percy has something called PTSD. Basically, he's been through a lot in the Mortal and Greek worlds. Sometimes things remind him of it and he has a hard time getting it out of his mind. Sally's pretty good at calming him down though, he's already coming down now. Maybe get him a glass of water?” Paul suggests.
By the time the god returns with a full glass of water, his son quietly curled up in Sally's embrace. She's whispering comforting words into his ear as she rubs circles on his back. Percy mutters something about not wanting his dad to see him so weak.
“It hurts just like it did at the mountain. And when he would smoke in my room,” Percy quietly says, “Make it stop. Please. I just want it to stop.”
“How about I make you some tea? The warmth might help a little, it sometimes helped with your asthma when you were little,” Sally gently suggests.
Percy furiously shakes his head, “I just wanna sleep. I don't wanna do this anymore.”
The teen subtly starts to dig his nails into his arms, hoping that the pain might distract him from how sickeningly familiar the pain in his chest feels. And how permanent it is. And that Apollo said it's normal now. The idea of feeling the hot tea sliding down his throat and warming his chest feels repulsive right now— it’s too close to the feeling of burning ash. It takes all of his strength to keep himself in the present and to not start sobbing again.
“I think Percy’s had a long day. Maybe it's time to head out, Po? We all need some time to process this, I'll keep you looped in about what's going on,” Sally says, knowing that her son wouldn't want his father to see him during the full extent of his post-quest crash. Knowing that this short episode was nothing compared to what’s coming.
Luckily, the god gets the hint and wishes them a farewell. Percy stays curled up against his mom for the rest of the night, skipping dinner and eventually trudging off to bed. The next week goes pretty much exactly how all of them predicted it would: Percy spends most of his time in bed while Sally and Paul do what they can to keep him as comfortable and safe as they can. Even though Percy had been home earlier, this is the first time that he’s really gotten to relax and settle in. It’s just twisted irony that when that happens, it leads to Percy being miserable every time.
The day of the appointment comes around and Percy’s feeling marginally better mentally. At the very least, he’s well enough that he can leave the house without it feeling totally impossible. His doctor takes two trains to get to from where they live now— it used to be closer from where they used to live and when his asthma was worse.
It’s been wearing on him to be coughing so much, on the subway he notices people inching away from him every time it happens. Which is a lot since it’s still summertime so it’s hot and stuffy on the trains, which definitely isn’t helping his cause. Admittedly, Percy knows that he probably looks visibly unwell considering he’s wearing ratty joggers and a sweatshirt, has disheveled hair, and is hacking up a lung every few minutes. He doesn’t blame people for being put off by him. He’s put off by him.
They arrive in the office and Percy sits down while his mom checks him in. His pulmonologist, Dr. Vela was recommended to him by his old neighbors because she’s from the neighborhood too. The waiting room is surprisingly full today, most seats being filled up with a mix of school aged kids and old people. Percy figures it's because school's starting soon and there's always old people here. Do I have an old people problem now?
As he's waiting, it becomes increasingly apparent how people move away from him every time he coughs. First, they shoot him judgmental looks— how dare you, a sick person, come to the doctor's office!
Second, they passive aggressively talk about him— Some people really ought to stay home or put on a mask! Percy tried a mask when they were at home to see if he could breathe in it since his mom didn't want him getting sick. He almost had another panic attack because of how hard he had to work to breathe.
Finally, they make a big deal out of having to move seats, huffing and grumbling about it. It makes him feel guilty, maybe he should just suck it up and deal. It's not that bad, right?
A door swings open, “Perseus Jackson?” the nurse calls out.
He heaves himself up from the chair, his mom next to him and follows the nurse back. The first thing they do is make him get a chest x-ray, then he goes back to the exam room to wait some more. Of course, his doctor's running behind schedule. He takes a short nap in the exam room until he's awoken to a knock on the door and his doctor entering.
“Hi Percy, hi Mrs. Jackson, it's good to see you both today. I hear you haven't been feeling well, Percy?” Dr. Vela greets the two.
He looks to his mom who starts talking, “He got pretty sick in March and ever since then his asthma’s been a lot worse, he just can't shake this bad cough,” she effortlessly lies.
The doctor starts a few rapid tests to make sure he's not still sick, even though he knows that he was never sick in the first place. She clips a device onto his finger and listens to his lungs, asking him to take deep breaths and to cough as she moves her stethoscope around his chest. The latter is much easier than the former, taking in a full breath just makes him feel like he has to cough.
When she finishes, Dr. Vela types a bunch of notes on the computer and pulls up his x-ray, “I would like to run a few more tests to confirm my suspicions but this is looking to be more serious than an asthma flare up. Have you ever been a smoker, Percy? Marijuana, cigarettes, vapes, anything?” she asks.
“No, nothing. My ex-stepdad and his friends used to smoke inside our old apartment though. It was hard to avoid, but he's been out of the picture for like two years now,” Percy replies, “I kinda can't stand the idea of smoking.”
“When you got sick most recently, what were your symptoms?” Dr. Vela follows up, Percy internally panics.
Sally thankfully replies, “Fever, bad cough, fatigue, wheezing, and shortness of breath mainly. Fever went away but the respiratory symptoms stuck.”
The doctor redirects attention to the teen, “Percy, can you tell me more about the cough?”
Percy hesitates,“I mean it's just been how you've heard it. Uh… sometimes it feels like I can't breathe because of how bad it is. Usually if I try enough I can cough something up and it helps a little, but sometimes it just makes me feel sick to my stomach.”
“It's also so constant, like he's always coughing or recovering from a coughing fit. It's been waking him up every night, so he's been more tired lately,” his mom adds.
“Based on your x-ray, your symptoms, the negative rapid tests, your history of asthma and secondhand smoke exposure, and the way your lungs sound, I'm going to give you a preliminary diagnosis of Chronic Bronchitis. It's a form of COPD where your bronchi are inflamed and have excess mucus,” the doctor affirms Apollo's diagnosis, “I want to do some PFTs to see where you're at. Have you had any Albuterol yet today?”
Percy shakes his head. Sally had suspected they would want to do some testing and let him know ahead of time that he shouldn't use his inhaler after midnight. It was uncomfortable, but he survived. He always survives, after all.
So it's decided he'll do all the testing today just to really make sure he's as sick as he already knows he is. The doctor had apparently cleared her schedule in anticipation of this, maybe that should've been a sign of how fucked he was. Percy follows her back to a different room, he vaguely remembers going through this years ago when he was first diagnosed.
The first set of tests make Percy feel like a fucking failure. He can't get a good enough breath to hold it as long as he's supposed to, he can't keep his breath steady enough for long enough, and he can't stop coughing. Next, the doctor says she wants to do a test he hasn't done before to test how reactive good asthma is now and it might be uncomfortable. A challenge, she called it.
Gods, was that an understatement. She hands the teen a nebulizer with a medicine he's supposed to breathe in, do more tests, then repeat. Pretty quickly, he feels his chest tighten. By the next round, his wheezing is worse but he can still manage. The next round is what breaks him. Before he knows it, he's coughing so hard that the only respite he gets is from him throwing up quite ungracefully on the floor. He feels bad for making such a scene.
That's when the doctor stops the test and gives him a different nebulizer, it still takes awhile for it to kick in. Percy thinks it takes two rounds of the medicine for the attack to calm down enough that he can walk back to the other room so they can debrief. Not that anybody needs medical school to see that he failed the shit out of the last test, effectively proving to the mortal world how awful his lungs are.
So yeah, it doesn't take Dr. Vela a second thought to determine that his previously controlled intermittent asthma has progressed to severe persistent allergic asthma with the cherry on top of Chronic Bronchitis. Luckily she's a lot better with explaining than Apollo is, so learning all the new medications he has to take now feels less daunting. She patiently walks him through what each medicine does, when to use it, and how to use it.
The last thing Dr. Vela does is fill out paperwork for disability parking, school accommodations, and about a million different prescriptions for medications and medical devices. She warns the two that his asthma triggers will most likely hit him a lot harder than in the past and that this is a preemptive measure so he has it if he needs it, considering he already qualifies. It makes Percy feel even shittier. Like this is actually real. Like he's actually this fucked up, forever. He goes home and sleeps.