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Zeke meets Perseus Jackson by accident while they're both trying to get their room keys. (Un)luckily they’re getting the same key.
“That’s awesome, dude! Means we're roommates. This is gonna be so fun. I’ve never had like…a real roommate.”
Zeke immediately hates him.
Something about his energy or his smile or his frikin’ eyes says that the guys got a couple of screws loose and Zeke wants no parts of it.
Zeke doesn't know what he's done for the gods to screw him over so spectacularly, that somehow he’s ended up with a probably unclaimed Greek roommate named Perseus for gods’ sake, who is apparently a frikin’ frat boy on top of that. He hadn’t thought NRU was even big enough for fraternities. They’re not even Greek!
“Dude,” says Frat Boy Perseus seriously and out of breath as he rides into their room on a skateboard, slamming one hand against the door jamb to stop himself, the other holding what looks to be 3 mini baggies filled with water, each housing a tiny goldfish. “The fish think I need a haircut. What do you think?”
“What?” The guy has to be high. Zeke gets it, they’re demigods, they do weird things. Some of them even have powers, but none of them involve talking to fish. Next best answer? His roommate is on drugs.
Frat Boy Perseus holds up the baggies again as if that answers the question. He brings the bag to his ear, humming and muttering back responses before looping Zeke back into the one-sided conversation.
“A mullet, they said! I don’t want a mullet.”
“Then don’t get a mullet..?” Zeke offers just wishing this were over already. He thinks about whether it would be worth it to fill out the roommate reassignment paperwork. Frat Boy Perseus is rarely around, always busy with a class or a friend or an extra-curricular or a party or the fabled girlfriend. He supposes one weird conversation a week is the price to pay for a basically single dorm room.
“I don’t think that’s an option.”
“The goldfish can’t cut your hair. They don’t have thumbs…or like, hands.”
Frat Boy Perseus thinks about this for way longer than Zeke thinks is necessary, but he lets him ponder it. He hasn’t seen the guy this quiet in…well ever, but he also can’t pretend like they’re close enough that he would ever know what’s considered normal for him. After a minute, his eyes widen and he grins. “Dude! You’re a genius”
He doesn’t even deign to give him a response, and even if he’d tried, Frat Boy Perseus was already on his way back out of the room, mumbling to the fish, skateboard held under his arm.
“Bro, I’m from New York, gimme 20 minutes and some duct tape and I like, totally could!”
Zeke hears Frat Boy Perseus before he sees him. His roommate is sitting on a table in one of the campus pavilions, surrounded by onlookers and admirers all joking around with him. He tells himself that rolling his eyes would be too much of an acknowledgement even if no one sees him, so he clenches his jaw and walks by instead. He’s far enough off that although he can hear the loud boisterous laugh of Frat Boy Perseus, he is certain no one in the group can see or hear him in return.
He scoffs. It’s not like he’s scared of Frat Boy Perseus. He knows that frat guys can be legitimately terrifying, but he doesn’t think Frat Boy Perseus would be the type… But then again, could he even identify the type? He doesn’t know Perseus, not really. And just because Zeke doesn’t hang out with the “frat type” and he’s not a social butterfly like his roommate, talking to everyone in a 50 mile radius, doesn’t mean Frat Boy Perseus isn’t the type. He groans as he marches across campus trying not to look back or think too hard on it.
He’s not scared of Frat Boy Perseus. He just thinks the guy is more than a little annoying and Zeke would rather not ruin his Monday further.
“Dude,” Frat Boy Perseus says so emphatically that Zeke wants to ram his own head against a wall.
“What?”
“Did you know the Alpha Gamma Upsilon guys were throwing a bonfire at the lake tonight?”
“Can't say I did.”
“Bro, we totally have to go.”
“Perseus,” Zeke says with what he considers to be the utmost patience.
“You can really just call me Percy.”
“Why in the gods’ names would we go to an Alpha Gamma party together?”
“Cause we're friends.” He pauses as if he has a brain in his head to think with. “And Annabeth says I shouldn't be anywhere unsupervised.”
That made Zeke pause. Other than hearing about the fabled girlfriend who was super smart (that he’d never met), he hadn't actually thought that Frat Boy Perseus considered them anything near friends.
They were roommates. Reluctantly, Zeke had always thought. He realizes, belatedly, that maybe that was all on his side.
“Plus,” Frat Boy Perseus adds. “It's a lake party! Which is basically like a beach party, and I haven't been to the beach in like a week. That’s forever! Annabeth makes me swear not to go unless I finish my homework.”
“You haven’t finished your homework all week?”
“I take a lot of classes, man.”
Zeke somehow doubts that Frat Boy Perseus takes any more classes than he’s strictly required to, but he’s not about to start that conversation when he’s trying to get out of this one. “I don’t want to go to the Alpha Gamma whatever party.
“C’mon, I never see you out of the room. Plus a couple of the Alpha Gamma guys are like your actual brothers, not just the frat kind.”
“How do you—”
“They're like double Greek now, but I mean…same thing.”
“It's really not.” Zeke can feel himself getting angry. He's nothing like any of his siblings and even less like his mother so he doesn't get how the fuck Perseus the frikin’ Frat Bro think he’s got that figured out. “And how do you know who my godly parent is anyway?”
“Is it not Athena? I thought it was like obvious. Sorry, was it a secret?”
“How would it be obvious? The fuck is that supposed to mean? ‘Cause I’ve got no obvious powers?”
“Annabeth’s a child of Athena,” says Perseus with his head tilted like a genuine frikin’ golden retriever puppy and Zeke wants to knock him upside the head. “You know, my girlfriend?”
“Yes! I remember you mentioning your girlfriend.”
“Yeah, so I spend a lot of time in the Athena cabin with ‘Beth and her siblings. As long as I don't like…touch anything.”
“I can imagine.”
“Soooo…I figured you could come hang out with me and a couple of your Greek’ed out siblings down at the lake if you wanted. Of course, you don't have to. But you can.”
Zeke wishes he could decline. Later, when everything goes to shit, he wishes he had declined.
“Fine,” he says with what he knows is the grace of the gods. “I’ll meet the Alpha Gamma whatever-the-fucks.”
“Seaweed Brain!” says a beautiful girl, running up to them with blonde box-braids swinging down her back, a Yankees cap strapped through her belt loop on a Disney-themed carabiner, and the same stormy grey eyes as Zeke’s mother. Both her and Perseus have a matching streak of silver in their hair. She’s my sister, he thinks belatedly as Frat Boy Perseus stares at her in a way he can only describe as disgustingly soft. “I hope that you showing up means you finished that essay for your Ichthyology class.”
“Essays are dumb,” Perseus, whines, though Zeke watches as he practically swoons. Heart eyes and everything. He can’t tell what his own face is doing, but he thinks he’s nearing green with the way he’s holding back a gag.
“I wonder what Paul would say to that…” The girl, who Zeke can only assume is Annabeth, crosses her arms while narrowing her eyes, and he watches in real time as Frat Boy Perseus melts. “Percy–”
“It’s done, I swear! You can check over it and everything.” He smiles at her. Zeke doesn’t gag, but it’s a very near thing. He does clear his throat though, which makes Frat Boy Perseus turn to him like he just remembered he was there. Zeke should have stayed in the dorm. “Oh! ‘Beth, this is Zeke.”
“Your roommate, right.” The girl, Annabeth, his sister whom he’s never met, turns to him. “Annabeth Chase. Nice to meet you.” She doesn’t hold a hand out to him or fake pleasantries, she barely even smiles at him. “Percy says you’re a child of Athena?”
“Minerva, actually.” He speaks through clenched teeth, because he knows what comes next, what always comes next.
“Minerva doesn’t have any children,” Annabeth says like a fact. He knows that technically it is, but life doesn’t always work on facts. Sometimes there’s nuance. Not many kids of Athena like nuance.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Then you’re a child of Athena.”
“No.”
Annabeth rolls her eyes, no longer focusing on him. She’s brushed him off like every other sibling, he’s ready to get angry and head home but then he watches as Frat Boy Perseus pouts at her. Actually, truly, literally pouts. She blows out a breath then turns back to face Zeke, arms crossed.
“Fine.” She speaks through clenched teeth. Athena’s children hate to be wrong. “How are you a child of Minerva?”
“How are you a child of Athena?”
“The same way you are, but I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
Frat Boy Perseus, pulls Annabeth back, muttering something in her ear that makes her huff again. Zeke doesn’t know how many times he’s had some version of this conversation. It’s true, he was born from the brain of Athena just like the rest of his siblings, but his Dad was a Roman History professor, so when his mother appeared to Zeke for the first time it wasn’t in the glimmering armor of a war goddess, it was the clay covered apron of a pottery–loving scatter brain.
“It doesn’t really matter anyway, Wise Girl. You know how bonkers the gods are.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she says. After a moment or two she clenches her jaw but motions for Zeke to follow them as they join everyone else. He does, reluctantly, but all he can think about is how flippantly Perseus had insulted the gods and how easily she agreed with him. As if ancient heroes hadn’t been smote for less.
Perseus has an arm thrown over her shoulder, her braids trailing over it as he stares down at her dotingly. He kisses her cheek then runs off to say hi to practically everyone. He smiles and waves, moving around the bonfire from person-to-person like a golden retriever let outside for the first time.
The party is fun! Or at least, Zeke guesses it’s supposed to be fun; a typical, true-blue college bash like he’s seen on television. Perseus was right though, the party isn’t just the Alpha Gamma whatevers, so he gets to meet siblings of his other than Annabeth. There’s also a few children of Apollo, a few more from Venus, some from both Ares and Mars’ brood, and even more demigods from parents Zeke had never even heard of. There’s music, games, and girls in bikinis giggling as they’re chased across the small bit of sand there is on a lakeshore. There’s snacks and drinks, but no alcohol that he’s seen, just nectar that some of the older Greeks are drinking more and more of until Frat Boy Perseus, of all people, confiscates it.
Zeke watches as it happens. Perseus stomps over, righteous, he says something to the guys that Zeke can’t hear, and they just…give up. They hand the nectar to Frat Boy Perseus, all looking properly chastised while Zeke just stares at the Alpha Gamma guys confused more than anything because…huh? Like, sure, Perseus has a presence. He’s the epitome of what Zeke would think of as a stereotypical Friendly Frat Boy™, but it’s like the older guys look up to him. Like everyone looks up to him, including the Praetors, and one of them can turn into a frikin’ bear! They hang from his every word, laughing when he tells a joke, most of the party had greeted Zeke like an old friend just because Perseus vouches for him. And all of them respect Frat Boy Perseus.
It’s almost nice, but it’s too weird. It’s bizarre.
He watches all of this now from the side of the firepit, nursing a can of some off-brand drink. And even that is weird: the bonfire. It’s just a few logs the guys lit with some old essays and yet it’s huge and near the center of the flames, he can make out the form of a young girl happily tending to the fire.
A few people try to talk to him and he initially tries to talk back, but something about these other demigods, even his supposed siblings, make him feel like he’s useless. Like Zeke isn’t worth their time. No one says it, of course. They’re all perfectly frikin’ nice, but it just feels like he’s not looped in on some grand joke!
The obvious answer then, is that the joke must be him.
Zeke stands up, his abruptness shocking one of the Aphrodite lot who scoff at him. Now that is a reaction that feels more genuine. He makes his way over to Perseus, not talking to anyone or letting himself be carried off into conversations just because they’re trying to get a good word in with his annoying probably unclaimed roommate.
“Zeke! Hey, dude, having fun?” Frat Boy Perseus looks up at him with big hopeful sea-green eyes. Something about that look stops him from giving Perseus a piece of his mind. Instead he just sighs and shakes his head.
“Got a headache, I’m gonna head back.”
Perseus, the asshole, pouts but hops up immediately, kissing Annabeth on the top of her braids. “No worries, I’ll walk you back.”
“What? I’m not some– I can get back to our dorm without a babysitter!”
“Maybe I can’t.” The guy shrugs, waving to the people he was probably no doubt talking to about Zeke and what a bad roommate he is. “Ask ‘Beth.”
“Constant supervision is really the best course of action for this one,” Annabeth says with a gravity that Zeke doesn’t think the situation warrants, but there’s a smirk on her face. “He gets lost.”
“What is he 5?!”
“I’m tall for my age,” Perseus agrees with a grin, like the little shit he is.
“Fine! Whatever, we’ll walk back together.” Zeke turns away, mumbling to himself. “Gods above…”
“Wicked! Later, Wise Girl. I’ll let you know when we get back!”
They barely make it to the trail leading back to the Pomerian Line and the rest of New Rome, when the shore explodes. Zeke watches it as if in slow motion. The ground just drops from beneath some of the other students, bursting onto others, grabbing onto them like golems before sinking slowly back into the dirt. He turns to yell at Frat Boy Perseus to run, and the guy does… back in the direction of the lake. Something in Zeke’s chest tumbles over itself because the guy is loud and friendly and annoying, but he doesn’t want him dead for gods’ sake.
“Perseus! Where are you going?!”
“Our friends need help!” The guy doesn’t even turn around or miss a step as he says it, and in that moment, Zeke really wishes he could hate him. He’s the illegitimate son of a minor goddess, and he’s pretty sure Frat Boy Perseus is unclaimed, so he doesn’t know how much help either of them will be, but he prays to any god that will listen and he chases after his roommate.
He’s doing his best to keep up, has even found a stray piece of driftwood to fight with if all else fails, but then he sees Frat Boy Perseus has already jumped into the fray. He’s slashing a sword– and where did he even frikin’ find that thing –while throwing out quips. Perseus and Annabeth work together like a well oiled machine. He slashes and dices while she commands him where to go, pulling the people he’s already rescued to safety away from the direct shore.
Zeke drops the wood he’s holding, stumbling forward to help Annabeth and some of his other siblings with strategic rescue efforts.
When he looks up again, the sky rumbles with a storm as Frat Boy Perseus rides into battle on a wave and something clicks. His roommate is Perseus “Just Percy” Jackson…
THE Percy Jackson.
Son of Poseidon. Acknowledged by Neptune. Blessed by so many gods Zeke’d be remiss to attempt to remember them all. Two-time hero of Olympus. Former Praetor. Thee titular bitchular demigod of modern demigods. Okay, so maybe Zeke is scared of Frat Boy Perseus.
“Holy shit…” He’s pretty sure his jaw is on the floor when Annabeth turns to look at him.
“You’re gonna give him an ego.”
It’s enough to shake him out of his stupor and back into rescue efforts while shaking his head, still a little awestruck. Frikin’ Percy Jackson.