Chapter Text
Here's the thing: Percy did what he was supposed to do, alright?
Senior year was a nightmare – three quests, a year of missed homework, and letters of recommendation from actual gods saying, ‘Yeah, Percy is alright. At the very least, he is consistently awesome at saving the world and other mundane tasks the gods need done. Let him into college.’
So you’d think, ‘Hey, Percy, after all that, you got into college, right?’
Unsurprisingly, you'd be wrong.
School was supposed to start in the fall, and September was only a couple of months away–
“Percy, did you open that letter yet?”
Percy looked up from wiping his feet on the mat by the front door.
His mom gave him a look like, ‘I better not catch a single kernel of sand around this house, young man.’
Was ‘kernel’ the right word, or did that only apply to popcorn and truths?
Her eyes flickered briefly to the hoodie he had definitely not been wearing before he left but, luckily, she didn't comment on that either.
“Uh.” Percy closed the door behind him gently. A boisterous door slamming would only make it worse; ask him how he knew. “I'll vacuum it up?”
“Yes, you will,” she told him and, like the amazing mom she was, changed the subject. “Now, that letter?”
“What letter?” Percy asked, confused at her definition of a subject change. It almost sounded like she was continuing a conversation Percy had not been a part of.
“Perseus.”
His mom used a tone that fit her usage of his full first name. It was just a step behind ‘Perseus Jackson’ which, come to think of it, only monsters tended to default to when addressing him.
“Sally-us,” said Percy, just to be annoying. “Or is your name short for something old like Sarah? I heard that's where the name Sally comes from, you know, a nickname–”
His mom patted his cheek as her subtle reminder for him to focus and he mimed zipping his own mouth closed.
“Go open your letter, Percy. It might be from New Rome.”
Percy paused, hand still by his mouth.
“Wait, a letter arrived for me? How did it get here? Solo on a golden chariot, or wait no– Did Hermes deliver it?”
“The mailman brought it last week, Percy.” Her mouth curved up in amusement.
‘Huh, last week?’ he thought, already moving toward his bedroom, unable to believe his luck had made it so that he actually missed the delivery of his own letter. The one he had been stressing for, let's be honest, a whole year.
There it was, a crispy white envelope perched on his blue pillowcase like those little treats fancy hotels left guests.
Percy sat down on his bed, picked the envelope up and held it in his hands for a moment. Underneath, on his pillow was something even better than a tiny chocolate – Sally had left him a piece of blue taffy so that no matter the outcome, he knew he'd be okay.
He pocketed the candy and blinked down at the envelope.
Of course the whole thing was written in fucking Latin – would it kill these guys to address him in his native tongue, Ancient Greek?
He was a bit rusty on his Roman side of things but he did his best, ripping out the letter and scanning for positive keywords like, ‘Excellent job’, and ‘You got in, kid.’
He saw the word, ‘Acceptus,’ and sat up straight, heart pounding.
That had to be it, right?
It seemed almost too simple, like they were actually saying, ‘Accept us and this letter of regret.’ Especially after he had expected at least a golden eagle or a divine messenger. Something with gravitas, and instead he got a mundane envelope in the mortal mail.
“Mom,” Percy called, heading to the kitchen to get help from the one person who was always there to work out the weird shit with him.
Sally Jackson may not know Latin, but she sure would try her hardest to sound out the words with him. His Latin lessons, ancient as they were in his mind now, would have to make up for the shortfall.
He sometimes pulled Latin phrases out of his ass mid-battle, how hard could it be?
Apparently translating a dead language between one person whose sole exposure to it was old Julius Caesar stuff and a dyslexic demigod hardwired for Ancient Greek was very fucking difficult.
At some point, he had to make the executive decision to Iris-dial Jason at the kitchen sink because his mom kept rebutting every translation he made with ‘Et tu, Brute,’ and it became hard to focus in between all the laughter.
“What am I looking at here?” Jason squinted at the paper held up before the misty rainbow.
“I swear, Grace,” Percy sighed, waving the paper as close as he could get it without getting it wet. “put your glasses on and read the thing. My future hangs in the balance here.”
“Gods, Percy.” Jason rubbed his forehead. “it’s ten in the evening here. The least you can do is give me context.”
“You’re such a grandpa, dude,” Percy complained. What was Jason doing arguing about a phone call at a reasonable hour during summer break? “It’s a letter. Possibly from New Rome College. In Latin. Which, rude, by the way.”
“It's a Roman institution, bro,” said Jason, as if that was the whole reason, and not the fact that his dad did this because he hated Percy.
“And I'm a Greek demigod, bro, show some sensitivity!”
“How is that my fault? I’m not even at New Rome, you should ask Reyna, anyway–”
“Okay, boys, that's enough,” Sally interrupted them before they really got into it. “Please, Jason, can you read the letter for us? Forget Percy, I am tearing my hair out over here.”
“Hey!” Percy protested, because how could she say to forget him when this whole thing was about him?
She hushed him and Percy settled back, tapping his foot impatiently.
It seemed to do the trick though, because Jason very quickly ‘Yes, ma’am’ed’ his way to finding his glasses and reading the letter. He should have known to pull the mom card with him from the start.
It was probably the longest thirty seconds of his life.
“Perseus Jackson,” Jason started, his voice deliberately giving nothing away as he leaned forward.
“Jason, Your Grace,” Percy returned, shaking the letter flippantly.
Jason smiled and Percy eyed the broadness of it in suspicion. A pleased Blonde Superman, who was usually stoic, generally, did not bode well for Percy.
He was doing this on purpose, Percy just fucking knew it. Jason knew he had less patience than even your average demigod.
“C’mon, dude,” he said, bouncing on his heels and absolutely not whining if anyone asked. “Get my misery over with–”
“You got in!”
“I am going to drown you so bad, Blondie– Wait.”
Percy turned to his mom.
She had her hands around her mouth, but Percy could tell it was mostly hiding the fact that she either wanted to laugh hysterically or burst into tears. Her eyes had that misty sheen to them too – and he didn't have to be the son of Poseidon to know the waterworks were on their way.
Percy wasn't great at the whole comforting crying women thing, but he did what he thought was the only natural reaction.
He crossed the kitchen in two steps and wrapped his arms around her. She laughed wetly into his shoulder – when did he get taller than her? – and Percy decided that this was better than any golden eagle or personal emissary from the gods.
“Congrats, man,” said Jason softly from the sink, still smiling.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Percy, voice a bit thick. “Don't get sappy on me, Grace.”
‘Suck on that, Jupiter,’ he thought but, very wisely, did not say out loud.
He was going to fucking college.
After hearing his news, Paul took Percy down to the bodega to get a late celebratory dinner – a treat for both Percy and his mom, who promised to make a blue spread containing all his favourite things the next day instead.
Percy would, of course, hold her to that. One did not offer blue food lightly in the Jackson-Blofis household.
The rest of the evening went something like this: they ate their food on the balcony with the whole city as their view, which Percy enjoyed with only slight trepidation that some monster disguised as a rando guy would gate crash his party.
Paul put on some weird jazz that absolutely nobody asked for, and Sally brought out a secret stash of candy she had been hiding from him. Percy spent a solid ten minutes just stuffing his pockets with the good stuff and accused her for another ten about holding out on him.
Percy got put on baby duty in what he suspected was revenge.
It was his own fault, really, seeing as he had been in such a good mood even volunteering to burp Estelle wasn't enough to dampen his spirits.
That was until she actually spat up sour milk all over the burping cloth he had carefully laid on his shoulder. Not that it even mattered, apparently.
And look, he's had his fair share of fucked up disgusting shit all over his clothes but–
Gods, the smell of baby sick topped the charts above monster dust and lagging only slightly behind the flaming poop stables he had to clean that one time.
“Ugh.” Percy immediately pulled the baby away from his hoodie to check the damage.
A bit of it had slid off the cloth straight onto the curly embroidered words beside the zipper, covering it entirely. He didn't even know that was there, but still.
Sick, and not in a complimentary way.
“Gross, dude,” he told her sternly.
She gurgled back at him, completely unrepentant, the little monster.
Paul looked up from decimating a students’ paper with the red pen he clearly only used for evil. “What's that Percy?”
Oh, so now the parents decided to notice – after the damage had been done – while Paul did homework and Sally read a book. Both of them being absolute nerds while he suffered at the hands of their child.
Typical.
“Get your daughter,” Percy said, and handed her over to him. “She blew chunks all over my hoodie, man.”
“Estelle's not on solids,” said Paul, wiping away a bit of excess milk from her lip with his own shirt.
“So why is it chunky then?” Percy demanded, holding the soiled cloth between two fingers and flicking it onto the table. It landed between two half-eaten bagels.
“Percy!”
His mom gave him an exasperated frown, so he picked it back up and laid it over the balcony railing instead.
It slipped off almost immediately and probably gave a pedestrian trust issues about walking late at night.
Percy winced.
Sally sighed and started muttering about having to leave a note of apology on the apartment building bulletin board.
“Sorry, mom.” Percy crossed his arms and then quickly uncrossing them at the squelching sound.
He must have appeared as disgusted as he felt because Paul said, “Just leave the hoodie in the hamper, bud, I'll get it cleaned up in tomorrow's wash cycle.”
“No,” said Percy quickly, then bit his lip and tried not to fiddle with the hoodie strings.
His parents exchanged a look that Percy had begun dubbing the ‘Are you seeing this shit same as me?’ look.
Yeah, the name was a bit long. He was still work-shopping it, leave him alone.
“Uh, it's fine,” he said, backing away to the door leading inside. “I'll just give it a soak or something.”
His mom called out to his back, “Detergent is in the cabinet below the sink!”
“Okay!”
He would not be needing it though, it would only cover up the smell of vomit in the sickly sweet way he knew well. Sea water should do the trick though, right? It was antiseptic – didn't Solace say something like that?
The last thing he heard before sliding the door closed again was the sound of Sally and Paul giggling together. Probably over something he didn't want to hear.
Whatever.
He had a feeling, surfacing sometime the next morning as his parents conveniently remembered they needed groceries, that he now knew what they'd been giggling about.
Apparently the ‘P’ in Percy stood for Personal Babysitter.
The only problem, besides the gross factor established, was that babies were, frankly, boring. And yeah, that wasn't the baby's fault, but it did make him question what everyone found so fascinating about them when they couldn't even speak up and defend their terrible choices.
“Do something cool,” said Percy, poking her in the belly.
She giggled and just stayed there, laying on the floor like a baby. Percy didn't know what else he expected, but he supposed it was better than crying. Or throwing up.
Actually, that was an excellent point, and he vowed to keep his hands away from her stomach. That way lay madness and sour milk, apparently.
Well, if there was one thing he was good at, it was filling awkward silences with insightful observations. Others may argue on the ‘insightful’ part, but begging babies couldn't be choosing babies.
Twenty minutes later Percy was laying on his back next to her while she dutifully listened to his stories. She was a surprisingly good listener and had only interrupted him twice to garble nonsense at him.
“And then – okay this is the best part – I threw him my flip flops and he caught them. One-handed. Which was impressive, objectively, y’know, as a completely neutral, third-party observer–”
Estelle made a sound that Percy chose to interpret as confusion. Right, she needed context. He gave her a rundown from jeans to shoes.
“Yeah, exactly!” said Percy, after her latest interjection. “That's what I told him. But no, my dad, not your dad by the way – not that it matters. Anyway, my dad basically stole his shoes. I don't know if he thought he was like, wing-manning or whatever…”
At this point, Estelle began fussing like she didn't appreciate Poseidon's antics either.
Percy pulled some water from the glass on the table by his head and began trying to create an image of Blackjack from the droplets. It was truly awful, and looked more like a hippocampus than a horse, but it did the trick.
She stared at it, mesmerised, and Percy settled back, continuing his story since he wasn't done.
“Anyway,” he started, to gather his thoughts again. “So, yeah. He had no shoes anymore. You had to be there, bro, it was ridiculous. We just like– cracked up like neither of us had ever heard a joke in our lives. And I should have been offended because he kept refusing to even smile at any of my bangers but then laughed at his own joke. Who does that?”
Estelle blew a raspberry.
“Right?” Percy propped his head up with one arm and used the other to change the hippocampus into a baby wave floating in the air. Maybe it would lull her to sleep?
“And the weird thing is–”
Estelle grabbed his finger.
“Yeah, okay, hold on–” Percy let her keep it, and the water twirled around it. She seemed to like that. “So like, the guy was totally oblivious to everything, man. Nothing I did seemed to phase him, y'know?”
Estelle gave a sleepy sound of agreement and Percy lowered his voice in case she like, startled awake before Hypnos could take her fully.
“So yeah, Jeans Guy– man, you should have seen his face when I kept calling him dude and bro. But you don't mind, do you, dude? Don't look at me like that,” he added to the grumpy face she loved perfecting in her spare time. “I know you're a girl but you're also a baby, and they're actually gender neutral terms, y'know. Like, imagine if I called you Dudette, I've always thought it sounded ridick…”
Apparently Percy did the soothing voice thing a little too well because he surfaced sometime later to the sound of Estelle making that sound babies made when they were about to explode from being Not Okay Anymore.
“What the fuck–” Percy paused, face to face with Estelle's wide-awake stare. Oh man, not the waterworks again. He didn't think a hug was going to cut it this time. “Uh– pretend you didn't hear that.”
Luckily, by virtue of being cool and part-Jackson, she knew when to roll with the punches and perked up again with a little distraction and some food.
He was actually really good at this, he realised a while later when his mom and Paul walked through the door and stopped there.
“What, did you expect me to not know how to handle a baby?” said Percy, baby propped on his hip like she had been since both of them got bored of laying on the floor.
The look of surprise they exchanged was offensive but he let it slide this time, eager to hand Estelle over in exchange for inspecting the blue items overspilling from grocery bags.
Gods, his parents were the best.
Remember that thing Percy said about his parents being the best?
He would like to have that scratched off the record and have the following correction added: his parents were the best when it suited them and absolutely the worst, most embarrassing people on earth the rest of the time.
“Okay!” said Percy, interrupting Paul's awkward fumble into something about being safe always – he wasn't an idiot – and the importance of proper hygiene – which was just offensive.
He took a subtle sniff at his armpits and breathed out in relief, only to freeze when he looked up and met Annabeth's disapproving grey eyes.
He looked out of the car window, glad he called passenger door shotgun, which wasn't a thing but he made it a thing.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “I'm a grown man.”
Annabeth made a sound in the back of her throat that didn't need words to say how much she doubted that last bit. Well, whatever, she couldn't argue with facts – he was eighteen, not twelve.
“We just noticed you've been wearing Annabeth's jacket for the past week, Percy–”
“Annabeth's…?”
Annabeth jumped in here, thank the gods. “It's not mine, Ms Jackson. Percy picked it up on the beach, and I did tell him that was weird–”
Never mind, she was the enemy here too.
“Hey!” It felt like his ears and cheeks and basically his whole body were on fire, which, water guy, not ideal. “I did not just pick it up at the beach like some hobo.”
Everyone turned to look at him, even Estelle from her car seat, but Percy was more concerned about Paul. “Eyes on the road, man!”
Paul turned back just in time to swerve away from the fence he was about to skewer them all into.
Jeez, he was regretting every second since he allowed his car to be taken to the shop for maintenance. He was sure he could have worked through the minor inconvenience of a busted carburetor.
“Percy,” said his mom, with the worst thing that could enter her voice – worry. “Now I'm slightly more concerned than when we thought you and Annabeth have been sharing clothes.”
“Why would we be sharing clothes, mom?” asked Percy, puzzled.
He didn't get an answer.
The next moment Annabeth stiffened next to him, looking out onto the road ahead. The camp was just over the bend, barely half a mile away.
“Mr Blofis,” she said, voice firm. “Stop the car.”
Percy looked at her and she jerked her head to the road. If he squinted, he could just make out three red blobs strolling leisurely directly toward the car.
He immediately pulled his pen out, not yet uncapping it but ready to do so at any moment. Things that came in threes were never a good sign – he'd learned that through many error-filled trials.
Perfect.
Paul stopped the car.
The three blobs stopped too, and slowly turned what Percy assumed were hooded faces their way.
He wasn't fooled, anything appearing casual at first glance could move very quickly when their mission was to kill you. And he wasn't about to assume good intentions from people dressed in the colour of literal blood.
He started opening the door and made eye contact with Paul in the rear-view mirror.
“Be safe,” said Paul.
Percy nodded. “Take care of our girls.”
He knew he didn't have to even say it, and could already see his mom pulling out a heavy-duty can of pepper-spray from the dashboard console. Estelle sat quietly, picking up on the vibes. Smart girl.
“Iris-message me later, Percy,” said his mom. “Love you!”
Great, not even a death imminent situation was enough to get him out of this conversation.
“Bye, love you,” he said anyway, already out the door with Annabeth hot on his heels. “Drive! Now!”
Paul didn't need to be told twice.
Percy and Annabeth started walking.
The red blobs were arguing. Percy could tell even from this distance – the three figures gesticulating wildly at each other with raised voices. They also didn't seem to notice, or care, that Percy and Annabeth were approaching them.
“I told you I smelled something tasty–” the one on the left was saying.
“You always say that–” said the one in the middle.
“Because I'm always right–”
The third one piped up: “You said that about the old man and he was already half dead, there was nothing even–”
“That is not what I said, Reki, I said he smelled interesting–”
“You said tasty. I remember because you kept smacking your lips–”
“Interesting and tasty are not mutually exclusive, Karen–”
“My name is Kara, not Karen–”
“Karen, Keri, Reki, they're all the same name, that's the point–”
“Wait, which one am I again?”
The other two turned to the one on the right, and Percy was close enough to see the annoyance stretched upon their pale faces, identical curled lips exposing equally identical, and lethal, fangs.
“Reki, you idiot,” said the one who had protested the name Karen, and was actually called Kara, apparently.
“And I'm Keri, in case you forgot after a hundred years when we chose our names,” said the last one.
Annabeth's knife was already out. Percy uncapped Riptide.
“What are they?” he said, voice low, mind scrambling to find any mythological reference.
The best he could come up with were Furies, or Empousai, but the closer he looked the more that didn't add up – he'd fought Furies and Empousai, these were not that.
Were they– Wearing fucking cloaks made of meat? The fuck?
“I think–” said Annabeth, swallowing as though she didn't want to say their name out loud. Which was understandable, bad things happened when you called a monster what it was.
“They're between us and camp, so it doesn't matter,” Percy said. “Let's just take them out.”
Annabeth nodded.
He recognised a sister fight when he saw one. The best way to end it was to intervene before it became physical.
“Thanks for that introduction,” said Percy.
Three pairs of blood-red eyes turned his way.
Fuck.
Annabeth put on her cap and disappeared – the KKK sisters stared at the spot she had just occupied in what he imagined was shock.
One of them, Reki, he thought, opened her mouth so wide blood gushed out. Yuck.
But he didn't have time to stand in disgust.
Percy used their surprise to rush forward, Riptide pulled back, ready to swing at them. From this angle, he could possibly take out two of them neck first.
It didn't go as cleanly as that. His sword hit the monster on the right, but instead of swiping her into dust it stopped at the meat cloak with a squelching sound.
He staggered back.
Okay, raw meat didn't cleave from a sword, got it. He'd have to get under it. He didn't really like that idea, but what choice did he have?
Their cloaks were floor length and he couldn't see an opening, but unless they were planning to bite his face off they'd have to open it up for their own attack.
He really hoped they weren't planning to bite his face off. He was very attached to it.
“Hey,” he shouted, stepping back a bit further as he lowered Riptide into an angle aimed at their midsections instead. “The Lady Gaga Convention is that way.”
All three screeched.
Fair, he hadn't told them which way exactly. They'd have to forgive his rudeness, seeing as his hands were occupied with a sword and all.
“Let's prepare our dinner, ladies,” said Keri, or was it Reki?
It wasn't Karen – she was in the middle sighing heavily, like she didn't think they were going to be as delicious as Keri claimed.
‘Yeah, exactly,’ Percy thought, ‘listen to your stomach…’
He shifted toward Keri – or whoever she was – Riptide low. Her cloak shifted and he tensed, ready to rush at her.
The cloak opened but something was wrong – it kept opening, wider and wider, unfurling into massive meaty wings. Underneath, her body was wrong in a new way. It was chicken-shaped with taloned feet, and where her hands should have been were yet another pair of three-toed claws.
And the smell–
Picture a slaughterhouse left open for three years, the sun turning everything rancid. It smelled like that, but worse.
He didn't have time to gag.
Keri looked directly at him, said, “You smell yummy,” then her meaty wings launched her toward Percy.
He wanted to say something like, “Thanks, but the feeling is not mutual,” but before he could, feet-hands aimed at his face and chicken-feet reaching for his chest.
He ducked.
Claws missed his head by inches and when he twisted to face her, the other pair gripped his hood and pulled.
His feet left the ground and he was left looking down as it got further away, Keri twirling in the air with him in her grip. She was gonna fucking launch him at her sisters like an open buffet.
There was nothing for it.
Percy reached back with Riptide with his right hand, chopping at her chicken feet, while his other hand yanked at the hood.
She screeched and something warm and gloopy dripped onto his head and down his ears. Her grip faltered but she held on firm.
Chicken legs clearly never stopped her from leg-day.
“Ugh,” Percy gasped, hood pulling tight against his throat. He stabbed his sword back, hacking blindly.
“Did you just drop blood from your mouth onto me without my consent?” he choked out the words, “Not cool, even for a demonic cult!”
Annabeth's voice came from somewhere on the ground: “Shut up, Seaweed Brain. Save your breath first.”
Keri screeched again, spilling more gross stuff on him, and jerked him back. She was definitely preparing to launch him again like she was participating in the fucking Monster Olympics.
“The jacket!” Annabeth shouted. “Take off the jacket!”
Percy didn't see how that was supposed to help, but he doubted she wanted to see him splattered on the ground any more than he did.
He gave up on yanking back the hood and instead yanked the zipper down with fumbling fingers, giving him just enough breathing room to twist back and give a final jab at the feathered underbelly.
Keri exploded into red dust and Percy dropped.
“Percy, watch out!”
It was too late – he collided directly with the monster closest, taking down both her and the other.
Percy rolled away, groaning and covered in viscera and other things he didn't want to think about. Just in time for a bronze knife to pierce through the gap in one of their cloaks as it began to open.
Dust like dried flakes of blood exploded and settled around them.
It was just them and the final monster who sat crouching a few paces away. Based on the unimpressed look on her face as she looked around at what remained of her sisters, this must have been Karen. Annabeth grabbed his arm and he stumbled back along with her. Karen's red eyes tracked their movements but she stayed put, cloak unopened, clearly not willing to make the first move.
“I think she's smart enough not to expose her vulnerable side,” said Annabeth quietly.
Percy could only nod in agreement and, out of the corner of his mouth, muttered, “Think you can launch your knife at her face?”
Annabeth huffed a laugh, but he could see she was already calculating the angle.
“My sister's nose is broken,” said Karen suddenly.
Percy frowned and thought a broken nose was the least of her worries, what with being a slowly reforming pile of dust down in Tartarus and all. But sure.
“So, you'll leave then, nothing to see here and so on, right?”
“Percy,” Annabeth hissed into his ear.
‘What?’ He was just going with the flow over here and the flow was telling him a fight with a smart monster wasn't on the top of his list of stuff to do today.
“My nose is perfectly adequate,” said Karen, ignoring them both. “My nose is, in fact, superior to all my other siblings.”
Percy groaned and an elbow knocked into his ribs, cutting it off midway.
‘Jeez, Annabeth, focus.’
The monologue was coming, he could feel it underneath the stinging in his side – Annabeth had pointy elbows, okay? Point was, she was going to explain that she was the only sister with a nose and brain and they could never hope to defeat her with that advantage. And all that junk.
“And my nose, demigod,” Karen said, rising up from her crouched position. “Says that you shouldn’t exist.”
Her eyes never left him but he pointed at himself anyway. “Me or Annabeth?”
Karen tilted her head, frowning as though she didn't understand the question. “You’ve named your garment Annabeth?”
“What? No, Annabeth is my friend,” said Percy.
A hand pulled his sleeve.
When he looked up again Karen was staring at the bit of material hovering in the air, Annabeth's invisible hand bunching it up. He supposed it looked weird if you didn't know invisible hats were a thing. The monster didn't seem concerned, probably because she had seen her disappear, but she did seem uncomfortable. Her meaty cloak shifted and rippled like she was full-body shuddering.
Percy wanted to do the same – it was really gross.
“What is the name of the garment, then?”
“Huh, my–? You mean my hoodie?”
“Hand over Hoodie,” she said.
“It's not named Hoodie. All hooded jackets are called that.” Percy paused, eyeing her hooded cloak. “Well, maybe not your hooded jacket. That might be weird–”
“It is not weird,” Karen said, blood spilling between her fangs.
Percy wondered where it all came from since monsters didn't exactly have a functional circulatory system, he didn't think.
“Everything in your world has a name,” she continued, her point very clearly not made yet,
“Do you not know how humiliating it is to walk around unnamed? When you and your sisters are addressed as a group instead of individuals?”
“So…” said Percy. “Why'd you name yourself Karen?”
“My name is Kara, not Karen!”
Percy winced. Whoops. That was his bad.
She was real mad now – he could tell by the way blood absolutely gushed down her chin and, somehow, the smell wafting from her cloak getting stronger and uglier. Percy breathed through his mouth and almost retched from the tang lingering into the back of his throat.
Okay, bad idea.
“Give me Hoodie, you are unworthy of it–”
“Excuse you, my friend gave me this.”
He could almost feel the heat of Annabeth boring a hole into the side of his head.
“I told you, take it off,” Annabeth hissed in his ear. “What's your problem?”
He shrugged, not really wanting to explain why that just felt like a Bad Idea. Percy didn't have a problem; he had a feeling, which he knew Wise Girl would just, no offense, not get.
Karen, sorry Kara, was still going: “I see now we came not for you, son of the sea god. I, alone, shall feast on Hoodie.”
“Okay, gross,” said Percy. She did know clothes weren't people, right?
“Agreed,” came a voice from behind.
Percy turned his head in time to witness Nico emerging from the shadow of a tree.
“You’re a long way from the battlefield,” Nico said.
Percy gestured to all of himself, blood, dust, and all. Yeah, it wasn’t the most epic battle he’d been in, but it was hardly a ‘long way’ from that with a monster threatening to eat his clothes.
He wasn’t going to let her do that, not least because he had zero clean clothes and currently the jacket was the only thing between being totally shirtless.
“Not talking to you,” said Nico, not looking at him. “Why are you here?”
Right, that was a good point, actually. He kept interrupting her, but that didn't mean he didn't want to know the reason they had come all the way here.
“The smell–” Kara began.
“What smell?” said Nico.
Kara blinked. “My nose is superior. I followed it here. Hoodie carries the scent of–”
“I'm standing right next to Hoodie,” said Nico, so calmly that it made Percy think he should probably not point out that Hoodie wasn't its name. “I don't smell anything.”
“That's impossible!”
“Is it?” Nico tilted his head slightly. “Or is your nose broken? Like your sister's.”
And what the hell? How long had Nico been listening in?
Kara's cloak rippled in offense. “My nose is not–”
“Leave,” said Nico again. “Before I call your brother to remove you from the premises.”
That seemed to do the trick.
Kara's red eyes went to the hoodie for a second, then back to Nico and ultimately decided it wasn't worth the hassle. That, or her brother was some real beefy dude – pun intended.
She left in a cloud of dust that smelled uncomfortably of beef jerky. Percy stared at the space she'd been standing in. “Huh.”
Nico was quiet for a moment. Then said, almost to himself: “You absolutely do reek.”
Percy spun around. “I thought you said you couldn't smell anything.”
“I lied,” said Nico, rubbing his temples like he regretted stepping out of the shadows to help them. “I just--” He stopped mid-breath, his hand freezing against his face.
“Whoa, man, you okay?” Percy asked, taking a step forward.
Nico didn't answer.
Instead, he let out a sharp, sudden gasp, his head jerking back as a dark, heavy streak of crimson leaked rapidly from his left nostril, dripping over his lip. He looked totally rattled, his skin a shade of pale that made him look more like his ghostly underlings than a living teenager -- which was saying a lot, considering he usually walked around like the embodiment of an entire goth kid clique.
Percy hissed in sympathy as a pair of invisible hands quickly tilted Nico’s head back by the chin. Nico allowed it for just a moment before he batted Annabeth away.
“I’m fine.” When Nico finally looked up, his gaze zeroed in entirely on Percy's chest. Percy didn't like the look in his dark eyes one bit.
Percy glanced down at the hoodie properly for the first time since the fight ended. Under all the blood and dust and things he was actively choosing not to identify, the material itself was completely untouched. The zip was still pulled down slightly, exposing the bare chest he had been too lazy to cover up with a shirt that morning.
He zipped it back up. Slowly and casually equalled nonchalance, right?
Nico's narrowed stare didn't exactly instill confidence, but sometimes the dude just really needed to chill. And in his defence, he hadn't expected to add ‘Fight a Clothes-Hungry Monster and Give the Ghost King a Nosebleed’ to his bingo card – that was entirely on him.
“Where did you get that?” Nico demanded, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
Before he could answer, Annabeth butted in with the same wrong story.
“Percy picked it up at the beach, apparently,” Annabeth said, judging, popping up visibly with her cap in hand.
Nico raised an eyebrow that was somehow not even a little undermined by the blood gushing down his face.
And the only thing Percy could think was: that Harry guy has a lot of explaining to do.