A/N: I'm back! This story is going to be a whole lot of Hurt/Comfort one-shots or two-shots about Percy (either being comforted or doing the comforting.) Most of them will connect to my other story, The Agony Inside, but I will take requests if anybody has an idea they want written down. Anyways, on with the story.
Jason's POV
The loud thunk of the door slamming behind me echoed through the eerily silent room as I turned to stare at the equally-as-terrified-as-me cabin counsellors. After several moments of silence, listening to the roar of the crowd outside, Clarisse spoke up.
"What. The. Hell." She growled, glaring at me as if I had personally insulted her.
"Don't look at me like that. It's not my fault YOUR new camper has riled everyone else into a riot." I snapped, my stress getting the better of me.
"Well you are the leader here at the moment. You are supposed to keep this from happening." Clarisse jabbed me in the chest before moving off the peak out the window of the Big House.
That comment struck home. I know I am respected around Camp Half-Blood, just as I am around Camp Jupiter, but I will never be truly accepted as a leader anymore. To the Greeks I am a Roman and to the Romans I'm a traitor. And for someone that has led all my life, it was kinda hard to get used to.
I was jarred out of my thoughts by a flurry of banging at the door. Everyone in the room jumped.
"Guys, fighting isn't going to do anything. We need to get them to listen to us." Katie intervened, throwing me a glance in apology.
After another moment of silence we realised we had no idea what we were supposed to do. Figures.
"Stuff this, we're out of here." Travis said, pulling his brother behind him.
"Ah, I wouldn't…" I began, but they were already out the window and trying to get past the group that had congregated on the porch.
"There they are!" Someone yelled and we could hear a loud curse from the brothers before they were forced to run. It wasn't long before they were swamped by the masses of new campers.
Leo moved over to the window and winced at the obvious beating the brothers were getting.
"Ouch. Ok, this is getting dangerous. I agree with Katie. We need to get them to listen to us."
"That's the problem though. They won't." Clarisse snapped, getting more and more agitated by the minute.
"Well, is there anyone who we would all listen to?" Piper asked in desperation, sinking down in one of the chairs.
"Chiron is off with his family at the moment so no." Clarisse said, her voice oozing with distaste.
But I wasn't listening. I had stopped after Piper had spoken, realising that, yes, there was someone we could call.
I carefully slipped into another room and found everything I needed to make a rainbow.
"O' Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show me Percy Jackson, Manhattan." It took a few seconds but eventually I was looking at the back of Percy's head, planning how to plead my case.
"Percy!" I almost yelled, relieved that I could see him.
Wow, I must be getting pretty desperate.
"Hey Jace," he frowned at me, cocking his head to one side. "What's wrong?"
"You know that Annabeth is at Camp Jupiter at the moment, yeah." He nodded slowly, as if he was confused.
"Yeah, what's happened?" He demanded, still frowning.
"They have gone crazy, that's what! All of the newbies are bowing down to the newest of all newbies because he killed a Hellhound and they won't listen to any of us. Would you please be able to come down for the weekend and help me control them?" I rushed out, almost clasping my hands together but refusing to look more desperate than I already did. There was a sudden banging at the door and I could hear yelling through it.
Oh shit, they got in.
For a moment Percy was quiet, looking behind him at what seemed to be a desk. In that moment I felt guilty for even thinking of calling Percy. His hair was messier than usual and there were obvious bags under his eyes. He looked worn down.
Before I could retract my plea, he turned back to me and nodded.
"I'll be there in a minute." He promised and swiped through the message.
Quickly making another rainbow I contacted the brothers that had somehow managed to escape the throngs of children.
"Percy's on his way." Was all I said and I received two nods in return.
I turned around and barged through the door back into the room where the Cabin Counsellors were trying desperately to hold back the crowd.
"EVERYBODY OUT!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, somehow managing to scare them all. The crowd grumbled but filed back out anyway, back to where they originally stood in front of the porch where they immediately resumed yelling. The rest of us stood up on the porch, desperately trying to calm them all down.
"Everybody calm down." I yelled over the crowd, gaining their attention.
"No! Your so-called training is teaching us nothing. You are just using it as an excuse to beat us up. We don't need all this training to kill monsters! All we need is a sword!" Lawrence, the ring leader, stood out, rallying them even further.
I turned to the others, desperation clear, when we all heard a different voice hush that of the crowd.
"And what if you don't have a sword?" Percy's voice drifted over to us, loud and clear, making Lawrence stop where he stood. "What do you do then?"
My relief overpowered any other feeling that I could have been feeling at that moment. In person, Percy looked even worse. His skin was abnormally pale, the bags were more pronounced and over all he just looked sick. But with the confidence he was showing and the power that radiated from him, I don't think anyone could tell other than me.
"And what if you have a bow and arrow? Will you know how to aim?" He continued, parting the crowd as he walked through. "Oh! And how will you cope if the monster can use a weapon as well? Or is stronger than you? Or faster than you? Now that you think about it, I'm sure you find that nothing these people are teaching you is useless."
He had reached us by this point. Looking around I could see everyone was relieved to have their leader back, standing where he should be.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Lawrence yelled, advancing another step towards us. Sick of his attitude I decided to shut him up.
"He is the leader of this camp." I answered clearly. I saw Percy jump a little at that, as if he wasn't expecting it.
That's strange. I'll talk to him about that later.
"So he's the one we should blame for this training." The young boy sneered, once again advancing on us.
"This training is a lot easier than when I first came here. It is hard to protect us, because there is no way we would live outside the borders without it." Percy answered flawlessly.
"Well that is going to change. I am going to start my own training."
"No you're not. You are going to listen to your cabin counsellor-"
"I can do what I want. I'm 12."
Percy groaned. I think everyone on that porch was face palming at some point or other during this conversation.
"Shut up and go to bed will you. Its way past bed time and you'll need sleep before your sword fighting class tomorrow."
"I don't have sword fighting class tomorrow."
"You do now."
By this point I think everyone was confused. Percy then turned to us and asked us if he could borrow the campers for the next morning. Unsurprisingly everyone agreed.
"Everyone to bed." He ordered, effectively scattering the crowd. All the counsellors began filing off the porch, heading to bed themselves. As I walked past Percy as the last to leave the porch, I pulled him into a quick hug, trying to convey everything at once.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for helping. I'm sorry I needed to call on you again. You don't deserve it. Thank you for being here when you obviously have something else you need to do.
Instead of saying all of that, I simply whispered "Thank you."
PJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJOPJO
The next morning I watched the Poseidon table like a hawk. Percy hadn't shown up when breakfast started and it seemed like he wasn't going to show up at all.
He did look tired last night…
Sighing, I looked back to my food, poking at the now cold scrambled eggs.
For some reason I felt so ashamed. I couldn't keep any control here and I broke everyone's trust in me. Both Annabeth and Percy trusted me with taking care of the place in their absence and yet I couldn't do anything right. If fact I had to call one of them back because I couldn't handle it. I should have been stronger, more confident.
I shouldn't have put more stress onto Percy.
I was startled out of my thoughts by said person suddenly appearing on his table, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"ALL NEW CAMPERS WITH ME! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! EVERYONE ELSE HAS FREE TIME UNTIL LUNCH!"
"Wow dude. Drugs for breakfast?" Leo called from his seat.
"Nope. 15 Red Bulls. I'm never going to sleep again." Percy had replied before charging to the arena, followed by a herd of unenthusiastic campers.
My eyes followed him until he was out of sight before slowly moving to where Leo was now getting up and moving over to me.
"I like Red Bull as much as the next person but even I know that is not healthy." He muttered when he reached me.
I nodded and stood, forgetting about my half eaten breakfast.
"We need to keep an eye on him." I looked briefly looked over to Leo before heading off to the arena myself. "We don't want anything to happen to him."
So we spent our free time crouched in the stands of the arena, watching Percy train the children in a ruthless and quite entertaining way.
"He shouldn't be training that hard. Not with that head injury." Leo whispered to me, showing his concerned side.
I thought back to a week ago. We had been at Percy's house when a small bump had brought tonnes of blood gushing out of his head.
Wincing, I replied, "I know what you mean but I think that should have healed by now."
Leo sighed and began to tinker with something he pulled out of his belt.
By lunch time Percy looked just as drained as the other kids, but he was covering it up with jokes.
Leo and I snuck out of the arena and headed to the dining hall. We sat there waiting for Percy to arrive with his horde of tired campers.
He called something out to them as they collapsed in a heap in front of their tables, laughing as he did.
When he sat down at his table, his head dropped into his hands and I got up to talk to him. Deciding on my approach, I carefully slapped him on the back, sitting down next to him.
"Hey Perce. How hard did you work them? They look like they want to kill you but can't quite manage the energy." I chuckled, scanning what I could see of him for any injuries they may have inflicted upon him. I know, I know, I was watching him the whole time, but I just wanted to be sure.
"Let's just say they may not want to get out of bed tomorrow." He muttered, slowly lifting his head to face me. Up close his face was even paler than I thought. There was a fine layer of sweat coating his face, making it look like he was sick. The bags under his eyes were an even deeper purple and his back was slouched, almost as if he wanted to just curl in on himself.
"Are you okay dude?" I frowned, touching his shoulder.
"Yeah, just a headache. I think I'll go lie down." He said weakly, standing up.
When he stood up, I could see his eyes becoming unfocused and his body swayed dangerously, before he simply collapsed.
"Percy!" My arms instinctively reached under him, catching him and lowering him gently to the ground. For a few moments I could hear nothing apart from my breathing and thankfully the breathing of the boy in my arms. A second later the noise gradually grew in volume until I was aware that everyone was surrounding us, closing in.
"Stop it! Everyone just stop it." I yelled over them all and I was surprised when they all became silent. Not letting that distract me, I continued talking to them, although I never looked up from Percy. "Everybody back up. Counsellors, take your campers back to your cabins or organise an activity if you want, just get everybody out of here."
I received nods from all of the Counsellors and they quickly filed everyone out. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Piper, Leo and Will all talking to their second in commands before rushing over to me.
Will kneeled next to me and began to check over Percy without speaking a word. Leo stood next to us, almost acting as a guard and Piper was kneeling with her head on my shoulder, stroking Percy's hair.
Eventually Will spoke up.
"I think I know what is wrong but I think we should move him first. Would you be able to carry him?" He directed his question towards me.
Without a word, I scooped Percy up and began to stride towards the infirmary. Will ran in front to set up a bed and Piper and Leo walked in front of me, acting like body guards.
"Well well well, look at the so-called leader now." We heard Lawrence yell out from behind us.
"Go to your cabin Sanderson." Leo growled out in an uncharacteristic manner, worry getting the best of him.
"I don't have to listen to you. And don't treat me like a child." The boy sneered and my vision seemed to turn red.
Pausing, I turned around and glared at the younger boy.
"Until you earn our trust and respect around here, you will be treated like a child. Everyone here has equal parts to play but if we want to get along, you have to listen to those who know what they are doing. I know you killed a Hellhound and that is a massive achievement for someone who isn't experienced but you have to know that you scared the absolute shit out of us by even taking that thing on. Now you listen to Leo and everyone else or so help me I will find a way to ground you." I was breathing heavily after my speech and to my surprise he actually listened to me.
Turning back around, I rushed the boy in my arms to the infirmary and impatiently waited for Will to tell us what was wrong.
" Well, guys, it seems he is absolutely fine." Will sighed, plopping into a seat next to the bed.
"What? That can't be right." Piper exclaimed, grasping Percy's hand.
"It is. He has a slight cold but that is the extent of it. The reason he passed out is because of exhaustion."
"Meaning what exactly?" Leo asked, leaning next to the bed.
"When our bodies do not get enough sleep, our bodies may force sleep onto us, making us pass out."
"So, he hasn't been sleeping?" I asked, although I already knew the answer. Why else would someone need 15 Red Bulls?
For the rest of the day and most of the night, Leo, Piper and I sat worriedly by the bed, waiting for him to wake up.
I felt awful. I almost wished I could have said: "I should've seen it." But I couldn't, because I did see it. I saw it and I didn't do anything. Not only did that make me a horrible leader but also a terrible friend. And in that moment I promised myself something.
No matter what, I will make this up to him. He will never have to feel like this again.