The whole thing is about 3.8k and currently completely unedited. It's not my best writing, but my only thought going into it was jason, piper, leo, frank, and hazel get confirmation that the insane stories they've heard abt percy/learn about some of the insane shit that percy's done and they all proceed to have meltdowns about it while percy is confused and annabeth is crying from laughter on the floor so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ uhhhh enjoy?
~
The seven sat scattered across the galley of the Argo II during a rare moment of quiet on their journey to the Ancient Lands. Coach Hedge was keeping watch up on deck alongside Festus and Buford, which left the demigods to relax.
They had started out in different parts of the ship, but eventually, they had all wandered into the galley. That’s not to say that they started hanging out as a group, it was more like there were several smaller groups hanging out in the same space.
Leo was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall as he tinkered with random bits and bobs he pulled from his toolbelt. Frank and Hazel were sitting next to each other at the long table in the middle of the room, talking quietly. Annabeth was sitting tucked into the back corner of the room, her laptop balanced on one knee and Percy’s head resting on her other thigh where he lay stretched beside her as she ran her fingers through his hair. Piper honestly couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep.
Meanwhile, she and Jason were sitting at the other end of the table, their backs to the door, as Jason ate a late lunch and Piper crossed her arms on the table to put her head down, content to quietly watch her friends relax.
Then, Annabeth made a soft noise of frustration and drew Piper’s attention. Percy blinked open his eyes with a questioning hum. Annabeth muttered something too softly for Piper to hear and Percy craned his neck back to study whatever was on her laptop screen. He squinted at it for a moment, his brow furrowing, before wiggling around so that he was laying on his stomach rather than his back. He propped himself up with one arm, his chin now resting on Annabeth’s thigh as she turned the computer so he could see it better, and pointed at something on the screen.
He mumbled something about it through a jaw-cracking yawn that made Annabeth’s eyes go wide in realization. She smacked a hand to her forehead with a groan.
“Gods, I can’t believe I didn’t see that!” she said. Percy just mumbled something incoherently and flopped over onto his back, looking like he was already half-asleep again. Annabeth giggled (honest to gods giggled! Piper wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to seeing Annabeth ‘I Won’t Hesitate to Cut a Bitch’ Chase fucking giggle) and leaned down to kiss Percy’s forehead. “Thanks, Seaweed Brain. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She gazed down at him fondly, her expression impossibly tender, and despite herself, Piper couldn’t hold back her wistful sigh.
Unfortunately, said sigh managed to draw everyone’s attention (except Percy’s, who had turned his head to bury his face in Annabeth’s sweater) and Piper felt her cheeks flame as they all looked at her. Leo and Jason looked confused, and Frank looked vaguely startled while Hazel bit her lip trying not to laugh. Annabeth just raised an eyebrow at her, making Piper blush harder.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up to begin gesturing vaguely. “It’s just—I mean—you—oh gods,” Piper cut herself off and buried her head in her hands with a groan.
“Careful there, Beauty Queen. You having a stroke or something? Do you smell toast?” Leo said and poked her cheek, having apparently gotten up and wandered over to her.
She lifted her head to glare at him and flipped him off. Leo just snickered and dropped into the chair on her other side.
Jason laid a comforting hand on her back. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. When she opened them again, she found that Frank and Hazel had moved closer to her and Jason’s end of the table while Annabeth was in the process of dragging a disgruntled, bleary-eyed Percy to sit at the table as well.
Piper sighed and reached up to fiddle with her hair, starting a small braid as she began to talk. “Look, it’s kind of silly, but, well, it’s just a little baffling to me,” she said, abandoning her braid to gesture to Annabeth. “Seeing you with Percy. It just kind of makes me realize how little I actually know about you two, about all of you. I mean, I think Leo and I were friends before peacock bitch messed with our heads, but I can’t be sure because she fucked with our memories. I feel like regardless of that, though, I at least got a few months getting to know Jason for real and, I don’t know, resettling? Reconfirming? My friendship with Leo, trying to figure out how much of what I know about him from my tampered memories is real.” She ran her hand through her hair and let out a frustrated huff. “But with you guys,” she gestured at Frank and Hazel, “I mean, I don’t really know anything about you guys. And you two!” she pointed at Percy and Annabeth, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t even get me started!” she groaned.
Percy blinked owlishly at her, clearly at a loss as to what was going on. Annabeth, annoyingly, looked like she was barely resisting the urge to laugh. Piper glared at them.
“Annabeth, you were so serious and angry all the time! You were almost never at Camp and if you were, you didn’t really talk to anybody. I mean, gods, you kept your emotions so locked down! But then we get to Camp Jupiter and you pretty much just straight up attack their newly minted Praetor right in front of them, something I’d have never thought you’d do. And now that you’ve got Percy back, you-you're so open all of a sudden! You giggle! From what I saw of you while Percy was missing, I never would have thought that you’d be the kind of person to giggle and make some of the sappiest, most love-sick expressions I have ever seen.” Piper waved her hands around, aghast.
Annabeth gave up holding it in and burst into a fit of laughter. Hazel was trying to hide her quiet giggling behind her hand while the boys just gave Piper matching wide-eyed stares. She ignored them and pointed an accusatory finger at Percy.
“And speaking of you, Percy Jackson, I cannot for the life of me figure you out! I mean, you were all anyone at Camp would talk about, and they told us all these insane stories about shit you supposedly did. If I’m being honest, I kinda expected you to be at least a little egotistical, maybe even a bit of a self-important asshole, y’know?” she said, only to get cut off by Frank, Hazel, and Annabeth bursting into roaring laughter. “Hey!” Piper sputtered indignantly. “I feel like that was a fair assumption to make! Especially about a guy who ‘supposedly’ fought the god of war at twelve and won.” Piper crossed her arms and huffed.
Hazel and Frank’s laughter choked off and they turned to stare at Percy with horrified expressions. Annabeth howled and fell off her chair, clutching her stomach. Percy himself was too busy giving Annabeth an affronted look to notice.
“I mean, are we really supposed to believe that he managed to kill the minotaur with his bare hands before he even made it to Camp? Or that he almost single-handedly took out a Titan? Like, come on! There’s no way any of that happened.” Piper glared at where Annabeth was still rolling on the floor. “And then we meet Percy and he acts like he’s just some guy! He doesn’t act like he’s anything special or like he’s done anything crazy. But then he and Jason get possessed by those spirit things and I mean, that was terrifying! They almost killed each other, and Jason would have died if I hadn’t managed to get that pegasus to knock Percy out. So he’s obviously pretty powerful but, again, he doesn’t act like it!”
Annabeth had managed to pick herself up off the floor with Percy’s help, even though she was still laughing, and was now wiping tears from her eyes after laughing so hard.
“Piper,” she said through waning laughter. “Those aren’t bs stories. He actually did those things. I was there. Plus, those aren’t even some of the craziest stunts this dipshit’s pulled.” She jabbed a thumb at her boyfriend who just rolled his eyes at her.
Piper’s mouth dropped open in shock as she heard Leo drop whatever he was tinkering with and Jason choked on something. Hazel gasped and Frank started sputtering.
“So that’s what that was about!” Hazel cried, pointing at Percy with wide eyes. “You didn’t even remember it, but you just knew that you didn’t like him!”
Annabeth’s eyes narrowed and she whipped around to glare at Percy.
“Percy,” Annabeth said, voice dangerously low. “What is she talking about? What did you do?”
Percy blanched and started to sputter out some excuse, holding his hands up placatingly, but Frank cut in before he could manage to form any full sentences.
“He hadn’t even been at Camp a full day and we’d just won war games because of him, and then Mars showed up in the middle of the field,” Frank said. “The rest of us immediately dropped to our knees but this guy stayed standing. He just stared Mars down and said ‘I know you. You’re Ares. We’ve met before. We fought on a beach.’ I swear, I thought Mars was going to incinerate him on the spot. I was also pretty sure that Percy might have actually tried to start a fight with him if I didn’t jump in. That’s when Mars claimed me and told us to go to Alaska. Well, he told me to go and then said that I would be bringing the ‘disrespectful punk’ along, too.”
Annabeth smacked Percy upside the head and he just pouted at her.
“Come on, Wise Girl,” he whined. “I was tired and stressed out and I’d just carried Juno disguised as an old hippy bag lady across the Little Tiber, which washed away the Curse of Achilles and then used said river to destroy with extreme prejudice Medusa’s sisters. I hadn’t slept or eaten properly in like, a month at least, Octavian had been a little bitch and butchered my Pillow Pet like, an hour ago, and I was just confused as fuck about literally everything going on.”
Annabeth sighed and shook her head before turning to Frank and Hazel. “Did he get any better on the quest to Alaska?”
Hazel let out a small laugh and shook her head. “We met Phineas, the blind seer. Dirt face had brought him back, I guess. He had information we needed. We had two vials of gorgon’s blood, and Percy made a wager. Phineas would write down the information we needed, and then he would pick a vial. He would drink one, and Percy would drink the other. One of them would die, and the other would get ‘healed.’”
Annabeth turned furious eyes back to her boyfriend, but this time Percy crossed his arms and glared right back.
“Phineas thought that Gaea valued him enough to guide him to the vial with the cure.” Percy shrugged. “I figured she valued me more. And I was right.”
Annabeth shook her head and sighed again. “You, Percy Jackson, are going to give me gray hair.”
Percy grinned. “I’ll have you know, Annabeth Chase, that you already gave me gray hair. Or did you forget?” He ran his fingers through the grey streak of hair that stood out starkly from the rest of his inky black locks.
Annabeth groaned and let her head fall backward as she slid dramatically down in her chair.
“I have wondered how you guys got those,” Leo pipped up, “But Jason told me it’d probably be rude to ask. Do we get the story now?”
Piper glanced to the side and saw that he was practically bouncing in his seat. Piper had to admit she had also been curious about the twin streaks of grey hair the two older demigods sported but hadn’t wanted to ask.
Percy’s grin widened and his eyes glinted mischievously. Annabeth just groaned again and sunk further down in her chair, covering her face with her hands.
“Okay, so we’re like, thirteen—”
Percy immediately launched into a crazy story that had the rest of their jaws on the floor. The more Percy talked, the more Piper felt like her head might explode. First, he just kinda glossed over the fact that he got stabbed and poisoned. Then, apparently, Annabeth tackled a monster off a cliff, the Hunters of Artemis and Artemis herself showed up, and Percy had to deal with an energetic ten-year-old asking him questions like ‘if Annabeth is so smart, why’d she fall off a cliff?’ and try not to kill him. This was then followed by Percy sneaking out of Camp to follow along on the quest Artemis’ lieutenant had received to rescue Artemis (except Percy just wanted to rescue Annabeth, which had a part of Piper that she refused to acknowledge cooing).
When Percy mentioned killing the Nemean Lion with freeze-dried food packets stolen from a museum gift shop like it was no big deal, Piper thought her eyes might pop out of her skull.
When he told them about how he’d wrestled Nereus, Jason choked, and they had to stop to make sure he was okay before continuing.
By the time they made it to the part where Percy, Zoë, Thalia, and Grover had made it to Mt. Tam and discovered Artemis trapped beneath the sky, Piper had almost forgotten about the grey streak thing.
“I knew Artemis would have a better chance against Atlas than I would, so I told her to give me the sky.”
“You what?” Frank gasped, sounded as shocked as Piper felt.
Percy shrugged. “I’d seen in a dream that Annabeth had taken the sky from Luke before Artemis came to take the sky from her, so I knew a demigod could do it, and I knew that I'd do it anyway out of sheer stubbornness and determination if nothing else. Artemis had a better chance of protecting my friends and getting us out of the situation alive than I did and she needed to be freed. So, I took it.”
Piper felt a little like she’d just been punched in the gut. From beside her, Leo made a weird squeaking noise reminiscent of a dog toy. Jason looked like he’d had the air knocked out of him, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in disbelief. Further down the table, Hazel had one hand over her mouth and the other clutching Frank’s sleeve, staring at Percy, aghast. Frank, for his part, had dropped his head back and was staring blankly at the ceiling.
“That’s it,” he said, sounding resigned. “I’ve finally cracked. All the pressure and weirdness finally got to me, and I cracked. Hazel, I love you, you’re like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You’ll come visit me in the psych ward, right?”
Hazel made a strangled kind of noise in the back of her throat and her eyes widened from shock into horror. “Frank! I would never let them lock you in an asylum! I would much rather take care of you myself, even if you really had ‘cracked’, before letting one of those . . . places get you!”
Alright. Piper was confused. And, to be fair, Frank looked utterly bewildered as well. For a moment no one said anything, but then Percy snapped his fingers and pointed at Hazel with a wince.
“Oof; forties asylums. Yeah, I wouldn’t want myself or a loved one to end up in one of those either. But asylums don’t really exist anymore, attitudes around mental health have changed pretty drastically and mental health problems are handled much better now,” Percy said gently. “There aren’t lobotomies anymore, and ‘electric shock therapy’ is pretty frowned upon.”
From beside him, Annabeth made a small sound of realization before nodding and chiming in.
“There are still people who are gonna be assholes about it, but for the most part, people are pretty understanding. Mental institutions, like psych wards, are meant to be places of healing where people who are struggling can get help and care.”
“New Rome actually has numerous therapists available to legionnaires, current and retired, all of them retired legionnaires themselves. And I’m sure that after all this is over, they’d be more than open to helping any demigod, no matter which camp they’re from,” Jason added, smiling gently.
Piper resisted the urge to sigh. Gods, she loved him. He was so sweet.
They all gave Hazel a moment to absorb and process the information before Percy continued with his story.
“So, I took the sky from Artemis. Most of the fight is pretty hazy after that, I don’t remember much of what happened while I was under there.” Percy shrugged the sentence away like it wasn’t a big deal, but Piper was struggling to remember how to breathe. “Eventually, someone punted Atlas back under the sky and I was able to let go. Man, my shoulders ached something fierce and I was pretty down for the count. But there was still fighting going on and stuff to be done, so I got up and joined the fight. We killed the monsters, Thalia kicked Luke off a cliff, Annabeth was safe, Artemis was free, Atlas was back where he belonged, and we had won. But we lost Zoë. She’d been poisoned earlier and then further injured when she fought Atlas, her father. Artemis turned her into a constellation, The Huntress, and Thalia became her new lieutenant.”
Again, he said that like it was no big deal, but Piper couldn’t begin to imagine how painful, or even how tiring, it must have been to hold up the sky for even a few minutes. To then jump immediately into battle without a chance to recuperate or anything? Oh, yeah, and you can’t forget that Percy was only thirteen when this happened! Gods, Piper thought, Percy really is just . . . like that, huh?
She’d heard whispers, between the stories of Percy’s impossible feats. Heard mutterings and murmurings, seen knowing glances and eyes filled with awe, felt undercurrents of fear just barely lacing someone’s voice. It had just been bits and pieces at first, and Piper had still been under the impression that everyone was just pulling her leg and making crazy shit up about the infamous Percy Jackson.
But now . . . well. Now that she’s seen him fight, and now that she knows all the stories she’d been told were true and likely not exaggerated, those whispers and looks of awe, that hint of fear? They all made sense.
Maybe Percy Jackson was just a bit more god than mortal.
“Okay,” Leo piped up and startled Piper out of her spiraling thoughts. Annabeth was watching her with a knowing glint in her eyes and a small, knowing smirk twisting the corner of her mouth. “Okay, so that story was wild, I think we can all agree,” Leo said, then held his finger up when Percy went to protest. “Not you, you don’t get an opinion, you are weirdly nonchalant about doing insane shit, let the rest of us freak out about it.”
Percy shrugged and closed his mouth.
“But!” Leo continued. “You still haven’t told us where the grey streaks came from, dude.”
“Oh, yeah,” Percy snorted. “Souvenirs from holding the sky. Mortal bodies aren’t built for that kind of burden. A normal mortal wouldn’t have stood a chance, but demigods can survive it because we’re half god.” he shrugged. “It puts immense strain on your body and mind, and I doubt most demigods would be able to manage anything longer than a few minutes.”
Annabeth snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and the grey hair is the least of our ‘souvenirs’,” she said blithely. “We both ended up with fucked up wrists and backs from that little adventure. Percy usually wears wrist braces on bad days, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Hera deemed those unnecessary or something when she snatched him, because he was wearing them the last time I saw him before he went missing and now they’re gone.” she said, and narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend.
“Hey, you haven’t been wearing yours, either, Wise Girl. What’s your excuse?” Percy huffed, pouting at her.
“I was too worried about you,” she said quietly, ducking her head in a way that had it been anyone else would have made Piper think she was hiding a blush. “I couldn’t think about anything else while you were gone, and the pain in my wrists paled so much in comparison to the pain of not having you at my side, of not knowing if you were safe. Finding you was the only thing that mattered to me.”
Percy reached out to gently cup Annabeth’s jaw with one hand, the other grabbing her hand and guiding it to rest over his heart. “Well, you have me now. And you’re never getting away from me again. As long as we’re together, yeah?” he said softly, lifting her chin so she would have to meet his eyes.
Annabeth let out a light, watery laugh, leaning into the warmth of Percy’s palm. “As long as we’re together,” she repeated, voice just as soft, and matched Percy’s answering grin. They leaned their foreheads together for a quiet moment, then shared a tender kiss, and Piper thought her head might explode.
Okay. Literally what the fuck. How were they so perfect together? Like, that had to have been one of the sweetest things Piper had ever heard. It was sickening. Leo, apparently, agreed with her.
“Okay, there’s no way you guys are real,” he said, sounding slightly hysterical. “The pain in my wrists paled in comparison to the pain of not having you at my side’? ‘Finding you was the only thing that mattered’? ‘As long as we’re together’?” he threw his hands up in the air before thunking his head down on the table. “You’re making the rest of us look bad!”
Percy laughed and Annabeth rolled her eyes at Leo’s dramatics, her head now tucked into the crook of Percy’s neck where she leaned back against his chest.
Well, one thing was for sure. Piper was never going to doubt a story about Percy Jackson again, if only to save herself the heart attack that came from listening to him tell the story later.
PJO AU where Percy is a god and does smth stupid idk so Poseidon, who is at his wits end with this dumbass, youngest kid of his, decides to make Percy mortal and then dumps him in the nearest Athena demigod-kid's lap because he and Athena might not get along, but maybe one of her mortal kids can knock some sense into his son and Annabeth wants to be mad about it because ugh, she has to deal with a mortal-ified young god that's the youngest son of her mother's rival but she CAN'T because it's Percy and she can't hate him! He just worms his way into her heart because Percy is so down to earth for a god and he's just so kind and gentle and sweet but he's also sassy and strong and funny and before she knows it, she's falling head over worn sneakers for him.
And Percy just instantly falls for this gorgeous demigod woman who doesn't seem to care that he's a god temporarily held in a mortal form or that he's the son of Poseidon, king of the seas and one of the most powerful and terrifying Olympians and is, therefore, a prince himself with a great deal of power, and instead, she just treats him like a regular dude and it's intoxicating! So he tries to show his love and appreciation the way he's learned from the creatures of the sea: physical affection and acts of service.
So Percy is essentially acting like a cat, cuddling and nuzzling and poking and begging for attention because it'll make her take a break from working so hard. He makes her food but he's never had to do that before so when he brings her a plate of what was probably supposed to be grilled chicken but instead looks like charred hunks of what maybe used to be meat, it has the same effect as a cat bringing its person a rat that it caught and killed in the garden and Annabeth cannot help but find his poor attempts at normal mortal things endearing.
After a while, she almost forgets that he's actually a very powerful god essentially having been put in time out by his dad, until something happens and her life is in danger and Percy, overcome by protective rage, shatters the locks his father put on his power and ruthlessly eviscerates whoever or whatever was threatening Annabeth in a show of truly violent wrath, only to turn around as soon as the threat is neutralized with his big, shiny eyes full of concern and his warm, gentle hands holding her oh-so-carefully, asking her if she's okay with a tremble in his voice and she is not afraid of him. She had never felt more safe or more loved than she did in that moment and before she even thought about it, she was kissing him and tangling her hands in his hair because she was his, utterly and irrevocably his, and she'd be damned if she let him think for even a moment that she wasn't and Percy held her to his chest and kissed her gently, reverently, like she was the one to be worshipped because he was hers, utterly and irrevocably, and he knew that he would rather die a thousand mortal deaths than exist for a single moment without her by his side.
So he yields his immortality to stay by her side, to grow old and die with her. He would always be more powerful than any regular demigod, even with only a fraction of the power he once commanded as the youngest godly son of the ocean but all that mattered to him was her.
!!!!! This is for a sweetheart anon who requested Percy and Leo bonding over their childhood traumas <3 (I'm so sorry this took me so long, hun) I think I started out strong, then I lost the plot a little (leo came out the gate swinging and I have no idea where that came from tbh), managed to wrangle it back under control, and then had no idea how to end it (yikes) but!!!! Here it is, and I hope it fits what you were looking for, darlin!
Without further ado, enjoy!
~~~
Percy woke up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding. His hand shook as he lifted it to his throat where he could still feel the ghost of Gabe’s meaty hand.
Fuck. He’d hardly thought about Smelly Gabe in three years, and now he was having nightmares about the guy again? He sat up and fought to steady his breathing, pressing one palm to his chest against his pounding heart and curling the fingers of his other hand around Anaklusmos under his pillow. Stupid Hera with her stupid kidnapping and her stupid fucking induced-amnesia making me remember everything all over again. Gods, it was annoying.
(When he drank the Gorgon’s blood, his memories had started returning slowly at first, in broad strokes. He remembered events and names and people, but not necessarily the emotions and sensations that went along with them until later. Those would hit him out of the blue. He was laughing with Frank and Hazel and suddenly he felt like sobbing because he could see Beckendorf still on that damn boat, feel the heat of the explosion searing his skin, hear his own screams ringing in his ears, and the grief was fresh again, clawing up his throat and choking him. He was cutting down monsters and suddenly he was paralyzed by fear because he was staring into Luke’s golden eyes with Kronos bearing down on him, could feel the thick, syrupy air as Kronos froze time around him, hear his horrible, booming laughter. He was sitting down to eat and he suddenly felt like throwing up because the weight of the sky rested on his narrow shoulders and gods it hurt, he could feel the all-encompassing ache, his vision swimming and his own thundering heartbeat echoing in his ears.)
(He was smiling and laughing, lifted on the shoulders of the Legion as their new Praetor, and suddenly all he wanted to do was scream and rage at the world (at the gods) because they were dead (they’re dead! Your children are dead!), there were so many dead, (and it’s your fault!) it didn’t have to end this way (it shouldn’t have ended this way!). Bianca, Castor, Beckendorf, Silena, Michael, Ethan, Luke, none of them had to die (you let them fucking die!) and the grief tore at him, fresh and raw and blinding all over again.)
(He was sitting next to Annabeth in the galley, their shoulders brushing, her hand a comforting weight in his, the other demigods gathered around the table laughing and joking and suddenly he was nine years old, hiding in the bathroom, cradling the blooming bruises across his chest and fighting back tears as he tried to clean the cut on his cheek so his mom wouldn’t see the blood and get worried. He was six and peering around the corner to see his mom crying silently on the living room floor, one cheek bright red and shiny, as she carefully collected the broken glass from Gabe’s beer bottle. He was twelve years old and he could do nothing but stare as his mom told him to run, as the minotaur held her by the throat and she disappeared in a shower of gold.)
Dammit, this isn’t working. Percy shoved his pen into his pocket and jumped up. He just needed to move. He needed a distraction, something to keep his mind off everything (he couldn’t breathe, Gabe’s hand was wrapped around his throat, squeezingsqueezingsqueezing, he was choking and he couldn’t breathe but Gabe was just laughing at him and he could feel himself weakening, his vision fading, the world turning gray around the edges, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe—). He needed air, the walls of his cabin were closing in on him, he felt trapped.
Percy staggered out of his room and ran down the hall, throwing himself up the stairs until he stood on the deck of the Argo II and finally felt like he could breathe. He leaned back against the mainmast and slowly sank to the ground. Instinctively, his gaze sought out The Huntress in the stars and he pulled her sword from his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice soft as he uncapped Riptide, resting the blade across his lap. “I hope I still make you proud, Zoë.”
“Who’s Zoë?”
Reacting on instinct, Percy lunged and swept their legs out from under them, Riptide pressed against their throat in an instant.
“Woah shit, man, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have asked!”
Percy blinked and realized Leo was staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. He scrambled back until he hit the mast again and tossed his sword to the side.
“Shit! Shit, no, I’m sorry, Leo. You startled me, that’s all. It’s not your fault, I’ve usually got a better handle on myself than that.” Percy cursed at himself for scaring the kid. He stayed back, his hands held carefully in front of him, as Leo picked himself up, still eyeing him warily. Dammit, Percy, he thought. Way to go, dude, like his first impression of you wasn’t bad enough.
“Nah, you’re okay dude, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that.” Leo shrugged, but his expression was still guarded, and he looked ready to bolt below deck.
Percy’s chest filled with a familiar ache. He hated himself in that moment. He’d fought so hard to hide his jagged edges, tried so desperately to soften the sharpness of his fear and pain and rage to keep from cutting anyone else with it. He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.
“My first step-dad was abusive.” He said it abruptly, his voice flat and carefully controlled. Percy ignored Leo’s sharp inhale and forged on. “I dreamed about him for the first time in almost three years tonight. I can still feel his hands . . .” He lifted a shaking hand to the base of his throat and reminded himself to breathe. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. “I was on edge and still panicking, but that’s not an excuse. I’m sorry for attacking you, and I’m even more sorry that I scared you like that.”
It was silent for a moment. There was a quiet rustling and when Percy finally risked a look, he saw that Leo had settled on the deck a few feet away from him. His posture was relaxed, and his expression had softened. Leo shot him a hesitant smile.
“After my mom died, I got placed with my Tia Rosa. She was my only other living relative, but she . . . she blamed me for my mom’s death, used to call me a ‘devil child’ and tell me I was cursed. She never got physical with me, really, but she’d shout and curse at me for every little thing,” Leo spoke softly, fidgeting with something he’d pulled from his toolbelt as he did. “She kicked me to the curb after a few years, and I bounced from foster family to foster family. Most of them were pretty good people. But they’d have anywhere between five and fifteen of us at once, and even nice people can only do so much, y’know? If it wasn’t one thing, it’s another. Either the other kids were assholes, or there wasn’t quite enough money, or I was just too much, too difficult,” he spat.
“But some homes were really shitty. I had a couple of placements with those people that you just know are only in it for the check the government sends them and couldn’t care less about the kids. That’s when I started running away, figured they wouldn’t care enough to report me right away so long as they kept getting their money. Then, there was this one couple that liked taking in the ‘difficult’ and ‘dangerous’ kids,” he continued, voice bitter and gaze far away. “John and Kathy, super religious types, thought all us delinquents just needed to ‘find God’ and then we’d be fixed.” he rolled his eyes. “Kathy would drag us to church every Sunday and have the pastor pray over us after every service. She even had a few of us exorcised a couple of times, said we were only ‘bad kids’ because we ‘had the devil’ in us. John was a little more hands-on in his approach, liked to smack us around when we didn’t listen and dole out archaic punishments when we misbehaved.” he chuckled humorlessly. “He loved to ‘baptize’ you every time he caught you ‘sinning,’ which really just meant he’d almost drown you in the bathtub a few times and them make you clean up the bathroom because you got water everywhere with all your struggling.” he rolled his eyes.
“Eventually, I just started running away from all of them, not just the bad ones. I always felt like a burden, and figured I’d be better off on my own anyway.” he shrugged and shot Percy a wry smile.
Percy snorted. “Gabe liked to throw his bottles at me and then make me clean up the mess, say it was my fault for pissing him off and making him waste a ‘good beer.’”
Leo snickered and Percy grinned, glad that he’d managed to lighten the mood a little. They were both quiet for a moment and Percy’s gaze drifted back to The Huntress.
“Zoë was one of the Hesperides, but she was kicked out of her home for helping Hercules get past Ladon and steal a golden apple. As soon as he got what he wanted from her, he dropped her, and she was left alone in a world she didn’t know, unable to go home or see her family. Artemis found her and took her in as one of her Hunters, appointing her Lieutenant. Zoë led the Hunters for centuries, giving other young women a home and a family. She hated men, and honestly, I can’t blame her after what Hercules did and with who her father was.” Percy pulled Riptide back out of his pocket and uncapped it, once again resting the blade across his lap. “This was her sword. She gave it to him before helping him with Ladon. When we first met, she hated me,” he snorted. “I didn’t care, really, I was pretty preoccupied at the time. Then we ended up on a quest together, and I dreamed, and I learned about her history, and I apologized for what Hercules had done to her. In the end, I’d managed to earn her respect I think, and before she died, she told me she was proud to have me wield her sword. Artemis gave her to the stars, turning her into the constellation The Huntress.”
Percy smiled sadly. “I like to think she’s watching over us from up there sometimes, probably regretting giving me her blessing and calling me a moron. I just hope I still make her proud.”
There was a gentle touch on his knee and Percy looked down to see that Leo had scooted closer, settling beside him with his hand now resting on Percy’s knee.
“I think it’s impossible for anyone with a brain to be disappointed in you, dude. You’re like, the hero of all time,” Leo said, laughter coloring his tone. “Seriously, you were all anyone talked about back at Camp. I don’t think anybody gave two shits about Jason, Piper, and me because they were all too busy worrying about finding you.” Leo snorted. “I was so jealous of you, man. Everything was ‘Percy this’ and ‘Percy that’ and I thought, man, I’ve never had anybody care about me that much since my mom died, I’ve never had that many people give a shit about me. I also thought you were gonna be a stuck-up, egotistical asshole with all the insane stories people told about you, though, so,” he shrugged, and Percy laughed.
“And when I actually saw you for the first time? And you were all pissed at me for the eidolon-firing-on-New-Rome thing, man, I thought ‘oh so they literally were not exaggerating at all about this guy’ and, not gonna lie here, I was terrified that you might legit murder me or something for like, a solid day after that.” Leo shook his head. “I thought you would’ve been one of those guys who beat me up behind the school, y’know? Strong, popular, hot as fuck and knew it.” snorted. “But then I actually spent time around you, and I realized you’re not all that different from me. Using jokes and sarcasm to cover the hurt, making yourself big and loud to hide how small and broken you feel inside. And suddenly, you weren’t so scary,” Leo said, and Percy’s chest tightened. “Except when you’re holding a sword to my throat because I startled you,” he joked, and Percy cracked a smile.
“Hm, I might have to do that more often then,” he quipped. “Can’t have you getting too comfortable around me.” he grinned when Leo laughed and playfully knocked their shoulders together. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain, you know!” he barely managed to keep a straight face as Leo started laughing harder. Before long, Percy broke and joined in, both boys fighting to breathe through their peals of laughter.
We’ll be alright, Percy thought, I think we’re gonna get along just fine.
Random headcanon: Percy suffers from chronic migrains and chronic pain!
Tension headaches! He gets them all the time.
Before he was claimed and knew what he was, whenever he'd get a migrain, Sally would tell him to go take a shower.
He would sit under the blisteringly hot shower until he felt better, and it always made him feel a bit better. Sally would make sure he drank an astronomically large amount of water, too. And while this wouldn't get rid of the migrain entirely, it would lessen it and make it more bearable.
Percy learned to live with his migraines. He'd drink a lot of water, take showers whenever he felt one coming on, and just kinda cope, yknow?
Once he was claimed though, and learned he was a demigod son of Poseidon, everything started to make a little more sense.
Of course the water helped him feel better!
It wasn't until the first time he was fully submerged in the ocean that he realized just how weird his body was.
And he didn't know for sure until he got back on land. But underwater, he felt more full of energy than ever, entirely pain-free and the world was sharper, his senses heightened. Everything was clear.
When he climbed out of the water and back onto land, though, the world seemed to dull and cloud over, like he was looking at it from inside a bubble or tank of some kind. And immediately his joints started to ache, which he hadn't realized wasn't, yknow, normal, until the pain returned full-force after climbing out of the ocean.
He asked Poseidon about it, once, and the God had winced and given him a pitying look before explaining that Percy's body is built to withstand the immense pressure from being deep in the ocean, and being on land puts a lot of stress on his body so it has to work really hard to keep him functioning like normal.
He explained that his kids often dealt with chronic pain or chronic migraines, but it was unusual that they suffered from both. However, Percy was the strongest child Poseidon had ever sired, having control over the entirety of Poseidon's sphere of influence where most of his kids only had control over part of it (meaning one could only control water and another could only control the earth, and some could only talk to horses and sea creatures. Though they could always breathe underwater).
He also explains that there isn't much to be done about it if Percy wishes to continue spending time on land outside of what he already has in place.
So Percy just continues to drink absurd amounts of water, take a ridiculous number of showers, and whenever possible, just spend a few hours under the ocean to relieve his pain for a while. Being submerged in other bodies of water helps, too, but only the ocean removes his pain completely. Baths and pools give him the least amount of pain relief, but do still help.
After holding up the sky, his wrists get even more fucked, and he takes to wearing braces on them to help lessen the strain somewhat.
And after Tartarus, his body is super out of balance and completely disjointed and discombobulated, but he pushes through it and ignores how out of touch with the world he feels because they have a job to do, the world to save, there's no time for him to wallow in his wacked out senses. (The others, if they knew how fucked up his body and senses and everything were, would have told him they absolutely had time and it would definitely be better to have him at the top of his game, but he didn't tell anyone, so no one told this to him.)
Once they do save the world and end the war and everything has settled down, Percy tells Annabeth he's gonna take a quick dip in the ocean (she knows abt his chronic pain and migraines and stuff but he never told the others) and then, once he's under, it's like the world comes back into hyperfocus, like his body has finally snapped back into place.
He hadn't realized just how, almost disassociated he had felt until then.
He just let himself sink to the ocean floor and settle into the sand, intending on a short nap to give his body some more time to readjust and recover. When he woke up and walked back out onto the beach, however, he was greeted by Annabeth running up and shaking him violently, screaming at him because apparently his 'little nap' had actually been three days long and Annabeth had started to panic that he'd gone missing again. He was quick to apologize and sheepishly explain how fucked up and disoriented he'd been since coming back from Tartarus and how he now finally felt settled in his own skin again.
Annabeth smacked him on the arm and berated him for not telling her about how he was feeling before and consistently beating down his excuses of 'we were busy,' and 'it wasn't important,' and what not.
After that fiasco, he told the rest if the seven abt his chronic pain and migraines and how the only real relief he got from them was being in the ocean (because of course they had all been worried and searching for him too) and they all nodded in understanding and gave him hugs and told him that next time he had better just tell them he was feeling shitty and disjointed instead of fucking off into the ocean for three days with no warning. He promised he'd tell them, but honestly, he hadn't meant to be gone for that long, and it was probably only because he had been so far away from the ocean for so long and then hadn't been in it for even longer and wouldn't disappear for that long again.
Usually, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours were enough, depending on how bad he felt and how long it had been since he'd last spent some time underwater.
On a funny note, after all this, Percy was explaining how his senses were duller on land, and Jason asked him if he thought he needed glasses too and Percy just kinda stopped because no he had never considered that glasses might be helpful on land so he brought it up to Sally after their reunion and she took him to the eye doctor and he got glasses! And they helped! His prescription wasn't too high, and he could obviously get by just fine without them, but they were nice to have. Eventually, though, he got tired of them constantly slipping and sliding and flying off his face whenever he got in a fight or was practicing ect and went and got contacts! He liked that much better lol
Other random tidbits:
Percy gets really agitated and his chronic pain and migraines get worse the farther he is from large bodies of water, so going inland sucks. In tlt that trip across country was probably the worst he had ever felt (until Tartarus that is). They try to go on vacation or something in a landlocked area of the US and Percy just gets so agitated, and his joints hurt so much and get so stiff and the whole time he has an absolutely awful migraine and not even showers help and feels just so bad but also kind of disconnected and floaty, unable to focus od think clearly at all and when they get back to NY and he heads to camp for a bit he ends up staying underwater in the Sound for a day and a half.
They try not to go anywhere landlocked for any period of time ever again. And if they do have to travel cross-country for any reason (quests, vacations, ect) they make sure their route always takes them past rivers and lakes and ponds and make frequent stops by them so Percy can spend a few minutes underwater.
One time though, Percy gets a quest and takes Annabeth and Piper with him and it leads them to fucking Arizona out in the middle of the desert and it ends up falling mostly to Annabeth and Piper to finish the quest because the lack of water pretty much everywhere really gets to Percy and once it's all taken care of, the girls have to practically drag Percy to nearest hotel and they get a room and fill the bathtub and just let him soak in there until he's cognizant enough for them to get him somewhere better. The closest large body of water is the Rio Grande, so they get over there as fast as they can, then make their way back to camp traveling along the coast or by rivers. Percy doesn't come fully back to himself until they get to the Gulf of Mexico, and then once they leave that behind, until they get back to camp.
Percy refuses to ever go into a desert again.
However, he does love rainforests. He goes to help Grover in the Amazon once and absolutely thrives! It doesn't take away the pain like being in the ocean does, but the air is always humid and everything is always damp and wet so even though he's kinda far from the ocean, he doesn't feel any different than if he were to be hanging out on the coast.
Speaking of, Percy absolutely loves the rain! He's not a fan of thunderstorms, and makes sure to stay inside if there's lightning (because we all know zeus would try to strike him with it) but otherwise, he'll be outside it in running around and just tilting his face up into the rain and enjoying it. Rain always makes him feel calm and eases his joint pain some.
Related: he loves to watch old movies and musicals with his mom and if he's out in the rain, you can usually hear him humming Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain! Sometimes he'll even do the dance
While on land, Percy's movements, to him, always feel a little stiff and clunky, he feels heavy and unwieldy on bad days. But to everyone else, he has all the lithe, effortless grace and power of a big cat stalking it's prey. Underwater, his beauty is indescribable. His grace is unmatched, he moves as one with the water around him, quick as lightning. His movements are easy and sure, in tune with every part of himself and all the movement of the water surrounding him. Few people get to see him move underwater, and fewer still have been able to see him fight underwater, but those who have are always astounded by it.
Okay so this kinda stopped being me talking about Percy having chronic pain and migraines but! Yeah, he does. And he's still badass and while he's bad at recognizing his own limits, he has people that care for him and help him take care of himself when they notice it getting really bad.
