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It’ll be fun, they said. College is an important social experience, they said. You’ll probably only get attacked by rogue harpies in the middle of the night half as often as you used to, they said.
That part was true, technically - he’d only been attacked by harpies three times this semester at New Rome University, and that was far less wrath than he’d faced sneaking out to see Annabeth back at Camp Half-Blood, and definitely less traumatizing than the flock of completely ordinary but extremely clumsy pigeons that flew into his face that one time in Long Island City.
Still, Percy Jackson and school were not a combination that worked well. He loved the swim team and the fact that he didn’t have to pretend to hide under Annabeth’s bed after curfew anymore, and it was a lot easier in a demigod university where the students’ dyslexia and ADHD were accounted for in the syllabus, but it was still hard to adjust to full-time studying after years of monsters and quests and school that barely counted as school because he was almost never there due to said monsters and quests. And really, it was totally unfair to make ancient philosophy a freshman requirement. If he needed to understand Socrates, why did he have to write a whole essay about it when he could just go to the underworld and ask the guy? Not that he was looking to get almost-murdered in Tartarus again, but he was pretty damn sure at least half the classes here would be easier to understand if he could see it instead of having to read someone else writing about something so that a professor could go and talk about it. Annabeth always reminded him that it was good for him to do a more traditional curriculum so he could be a normal student for once - and Annabeth was almost always right about that sort of thing - but the more he stared at the dusty textbook flipped open on his dorm room floor, his mind went blank of all the things he was supposed to have learned.
He dragged his eyes away from the blurring text to look up at Annabeth where she sat on his bed, sketching something for her architecture seminar. “Has it been long enough for a snack break yet?” he asked, hoping she’d take pity on him this time.
“Have you finished your essay yet?” she asked, pausing the scratching of charcoal on the page.
“No?”
“Have you finished taking notes for it?”
“Also no.”
“Have you even found the one quote you were so sure you needed to cite?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, already anticipating the answer.
He hadn’t.
Annabeth sighed and Percy went back to flipping through the pages again, hoping something useful would catch his eye. The worst part is that he’d brought it upon himself, he’d been the one to suggest no snack breaks until he finished the essay to keep himself focused. It was due tomorrow after all, and he was great at procrastinating but apparently not as good as he thought he was, judging by his professors’ looks each time he went knocking on their doors to ask for an extension.
He was going to get this essay done, though, he really was trying.
He heard the creak of the old bedframe’s metal springs as Annabeth got up, placing her sketchbook down on Percy’s pillow. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes, I just forgot my other pen,” she announced.
Percy had no clue what exactly made the pens and pencils different to Annabeth (he still wrote everything with Riptide) but as it turned out, the art stuff mattered a lot in architecture (along with the math and engineering and everything else) and most demigods didn’t draw digitally and risk the all too familiar blue screen of death or Instagram-loving empousai being summoned even if it wasn’t technically forbidden at the university. Netflix a couple times a week was the extent of Annabeth’s risk-taking, and Percy was perfectly content with that. Besides, the tesserae looked cool and solved most of the communication problems anyway without scrounging around behind his desk for spare drachmas.
He waved at her awkwardly from the floor as she left, not bothering to sit in a chair to study most days. It would probably come back to bite him when he inevitably developed the posture of a cyclops, but it was just more natural to sit on the floor or on his bed anyway.
Unfortunately, the silence in the room by himself didn’t help him write the stupid essay. In fact, what would probably help was if he could have a snack right about now. Snacks helped him focus, he needed energy so his brain could think straight.
At least, that’s what he’d tell Annabeth if she asked, he thought to himself as he got up and grabbed his ID to head down to the rec room where the vending machine was.
The rec room was a relatively plain communal area downstairs in the dorm building with not much going on besides a few couches spread across the tile floor. There was a pinball machine and a stack of board games in one corner and laundry on the other side. There was technically a closet full of swords and spears behind the pile of board games, but the university had a “no publicly using swords outside the sword training facility” rule in an attempt to show a semi-normal student experience and not risk any accidental decapitations after a few too many shots of tequila. Most importantly, there was a vending machine right at the bottom of the stairs, and Percy quickly swiped his ID for a bag of Takis.
A reporter’s voice quietly filtered through the single TV, installed so they could access limited mortal news for politics and culture classes. And for anyone missing home or worried about highway construction, probably.
“...reports of chaos unfolding at Golden Gate Park flooded social media, with no clear consensus on what caused it…”
Percy grabbed the plastic bag as it fell through the chute and immediately turned toward the news to see what had happened. Golden Gate Park was fairly close and he couldn’t help that the word “chaos” triggered an immediate warning in the back of his brain for demigod shenanigans.
“...some videos posted by users to social media appear to show a carnival gone awry after a minivan crashed into a tree, although our team has been unable to confirm it…”
He squinted at the screen and felt a shock through his system as a black-haired figure ran across the frame. That was undoubtedly Nico di Angelo, which meant the taller shadow had to be Will Solace, and what were they doing in California? And there was Hazel too, and… a lion? It was probably Frank, he guessed, but how in Hades had his friends all been right here getting up to gods know what sort of trouble and he hadn’t heard a single thing about it? Something important had gone down and he hadn’t heard from anyone, and not even a single vengeful zombie skeleton had grabbed him by the ankle in the night!
He took the stairs in twos, philosophy essay long forgotten as he threw open the door to his bedroom.
“Annabeth,” he panted. “Something went wrong in San Francisco over the weekend. I saw Frank and Hazel on the news, and Nico and Will were there too!”
“Oh yeah,” she answered calmly, looking up from her sketchbook and ever-growing pile of drawing pens at Percy’s dramatic entrance. “They were here dealing with Pirithous.”
“You knew about this?” he asked in disbelief. “And who the fuck is Pirithous?”
“It was on the bulletin,” she explained, “And some folks at Camp Jupiter told me the rest. Don’t worry, they’re all safe and Nico and Will are back in New York.”
“We have a news bulletin? And I still have no idea who this pira-whatever is supposed to be,” Percy said, his mind reeling. How was Annabeth being so calm? Percy was used to her being the voice of reason and being about five steps ahead in a logic puzzle, but his friends traveling across the country for a battle right outside his dorm seemed like the sort of thing he should’ve at least been aware of by now.
“Yes, seaweed brain, they’ve always posted news about the gods on the flyer by the front door. Pirithous made his own court of the dead to challenge Hades by sentencing mythics to death for trying to change their nature and coexist with demigods. He recruited a bunch of minor gods onto his side and even imprisoned Hazel with the mythics she’d been working with at Camp Jupiter,” she explained. “Anyway, Pirithous was always jealous of Theseus and he’d been stuck in a rock up until now for trying to steal Persephone- or, well, thanks to Hecate he’s actually stuck in another rock again after the latest incident. But the point is that Will and Nico and the rest of the kids at Camp Jupiter handled it. Can I have one of those?” Annabeth stuck her hand out toward the bag of Takis Percy was holding.
Dumbfounded, he handed over the whole bag and flopped down on the mattress next to her, staring up at the cracked ceiling. “What the actual Hades?”
“I told you, it’s fine. You don’t have to fight every single battle, Percy.”
“But there was a battle right outside my window and I didn’t know? How did that happen?”
“Technically it was on the other side of the bay,” Annabeth pointed out, like the Bay Bridge traffic was an impenetrable force even for immortal beings.
Still, it wasn’t like folks from Camp Half-Blood regularly traveled all the way to California for a quick trip to slay an egomaniac who escaped the underworld. And it was definitely unusual for there to be monsters - or mythics - anywhere within a twenty mile radius of Percy and not try to turn him into a demigod kebab. Even within the relative safety of New Rome, it was rare he’d go entirely unnoticed.
Annabeth was being far too casual about the whole incident. He rolled over and reached a hand under his bed, reaching around through dust and scraps of old notes until he found the edge of the tessera, grabbing the edge of the magical reflective tile bracelet. “Show me Nico di Angelo,” he told the device, watching it shimmer as the message waited to connect.
After a few seconds, Nico’s slightly confused face appeared in front of him. “Nico! What the fuck, bro!”
“Uh, hi-?”
“And your message quality is so terrible, you gotta ask Chiron to get some tesserae over there, it’s so much better than sending an Iris message, no offense,” he added in case the goddess of the rainbow was listening in. “Or ask Mr. D! The old man likes you for some reason, he’d probably listen if he’s not too busy watching reality shows and coming up with insulting nicknames for the new campers. Or I guess not, if he’s doing the therapy thing now,” he rambled.
Nico just glared at him, slightly confused and unable to get a sentence in.
“Wait, you’re in the infirmary?” Percy realized as he saw the shift of hospital curtains behind him. “Are you hurt from the battle?”
“I’m fine, Percy, I was just visiting Will,” Nico explained, shaking his head.
“I can’t believe you still visit your boyfriend at his work instead of making use of the private Hades cabin,” Percy said with a laugh, earning a shove to the shoulder from Annabeth just out of frame. Hypocrite.
“No offense but were you calling about something?” Nico asked. “Will and I are supposed to lead some sort of bonding activity for the new campers in ten minutes.”
“Right, sorry-” Percy snapped out of his distraction to get at the real question. “Hazel was in monster jail? And you shadow-jumped across the continent to fight a dickhead who escaped your dad to make himself a fake evil judge?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Nico shrugged. “They told me you had a philosophy essay or something and I didn’t want to bother you. Will and I were able to handle it, right?” he called back over his shoulder.
“Yep!” he heard Will call out from somewhere in the background. “We handled it. Worst part was the pre-dawn Roman exercise routine.”
“Ugh,” Nico agreed. “No idea how the Romans aren’t tired all the fucking time. I guess it’s supposed to help for discipline in big battles like this or whatever.”
“Yeah,” Percy trailed off, trying to wrap his mind around the situation but proud of both camps for handling it nonetheless. “Good job then, on banishing judge pita bread or whatever his name was,” he told Nico, unsure of what else to say. It’s not like he thought he had to be involved, or even that he wanted to (although risking death might be better than finishing another essay), but it just wasn’t something that ever happened before. Monsters and irritable minor gods and dead guys who never stayed dead enough always found their way to him regardless of whether he chose to participate or not.
“Right. Thanks, Percy.” Nico accepted the praise a bit awkwardly, although he could tell that some of Will’s and - although he hated to admit it - Mr. D’s influence had gone a long way and that there was much less scowling and deflecting than the last time Percy had seen him.
Suddenly Will appeared in frame, dressed in a bright orange hoodie as he wrapped an arm around Nico’s shoulder and smiled. “Hey Percy. Hi Annabeth,” he added, aware that wherever Percy was, Annabeth was probably there too. “Sorry to go so soon, but Nico and I are about to be late to go meet with some campers, but it’s nice to see you guys again.”
“Right, good luck with that,” Percy told them, taking the cue to leave. “Have fun.”
“Will do. Call again any time, and we’ll ask about the tesserae,” Will added.
“Bye guys.”
When the call hung up, Annabeth was done with her project and looking expectantly at him. “I told you it all worked out.”
“Huh. Yeah,” Percy agreed reluctantly. “It did.”
“Are you still wishing you’d been there?” she asked.
“No,” he answered honestly after a moment of thought. He’d always hoped for a time like this after a lifetime of fighting, but he still didn’t entirely trust the concept of a quest-free break now that he had it. “It’s just weird how much things have changed. The Minotaur knits teddy bears now instead of trying to disembowel me. Which is a good thing-” he added quickly, not to sound like Pirithous. “I’m definitely a fan of monsters being nice now and the whole ‘not getting murdered’ thing.”
“Me too,” Annabeth agreed. “For both of us.”
“It is pretty great that we get to be normal students for once without being on guard all the time for Olympus’ drama,” he continued, leaning over to give Annabeth a quick kiss. “And that we have free snacks in the vending machine.”
She laughed, grabbing the last handful out of the bag. “And writing that essay?”
“Not gonna happen tonight,” Percy admitted. “Let’s just hope I don’t get skewered for requesting another extension.”